figuring out how to turn on brain plasticity and motivation networks, and just kill anxiety, would make life quite interesting. it's too bad that improvements in neuroscience are the absolute most insane Pandora's box, with dictatorships potentially rewiring their people's brain for compliance and whatnot, thought reading, thought implantation, all nightmarish
It's probably a learning process for sounds that are typical in a language. Later in life we can also distinguish different languages even though we don't speak them. Many non-English-speakers will still identify a song like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisencolinensinainciusol as being English, even though it only uses sounds that are typical for English.
I think about this quite often, as 2 of my kids were born in Ireland, but grew up elsewhere (Slavic country). I speak English with them, but so do some of my friends/neighbors with their kids. The other kids would seldom speak English though, while my kids seem to default to English somehow. Btw. they left Ireland when they were 2y and 9months old (now 9 and 7), never attended daycare there, were only exposed to English at grocery stores, doctors etc. My point is, the early exposure to the language seem to make huge difference. I'm sure it's a combination of other things too but I'd say it is definitely a strong factor.
[edits: grammar]
The babies are exposed to French the whole pregnancy and after, it's the foreign Hebrew/German they are testing for.
This is a meaningless comment.
The study is most likely bunk, but this nit pick is boring and wrong, they should have enough native French exposure already, it's the foreign language that matters.
The point of the study was to see if just a small amount of language exposure would be enough for the unborn baby to start learning it. And the answer was yes.
For a native language, the unborn baby gets a lot of exposure. Only with a foreign language would an unborn baby get a small amount of exposure.
Title is correct. "Foreign", in terms of language, is a language not spoken typically in one's home country. Now, a home country only applies to a person after they've been born, which is not the case of the subjects of the article. But still, we can give a bit of leeway to the author, and just presume the home country of the unborn child, and so, interpret the concept of a "foreign language" correctly.
Yeah, this is a press F to doubt kind of situation, for many reasons: frontal cortex not developed, Broca’s and Werneke’s areas not developed, sounds not transmitting through a belly and through amniotic fluid into an undeveloped auditory canal, etc.
Easy to spot bullshit that sounds more like an April Fools post than anything else.
I shared this article with my sister. Unfortunately I have lost faith in most people to read the full article. Within 30 seconds of sending the article she responds with "Sadly I don't know two languages! So we will focus on english together"
To me the point is to toss as much at the brain as possible. Not limit yourself or your child with monoculture.
i have a problem with these kinds of titles. you always see these titles that appear to contradict themselves or baffle people in order to bait people into clicking. the title should be “exposure to language in the womb appears to have lasting impact” or something like that. when i see baffle bait on HN it just makes me feel embarrassed. i think there should be a guideline against it honestly.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 42.3 ms ] threadThe babies are exposed to French the whole pregnancy and after, it's the foreign Hebrew/German they are testing for.
This is a meaningless comment.
The study is most likely bunk, but this nit pick is boring and wrong, they should have enough native French exposure already, it's the foreign language that matters.
For a native language, the unborn baby gets a lot of exposure. Only with a foreign language would an unborn baby get a small amount of exposure.
Nevertheless, I'm basically illiterate when it comes to writing Russian.
Easy to spot bullshit that sounds more like an April Fools post than anything else.
To me the point is to toss as much at the brain as possible. Not limit yourself or your child with monoculture.