Learning a language is something natural that we do

Can you believe that we just can’t stop learning a language?

Micheal was working as CEO of a medium-size operation in Hong Kong,and he finally decided it was time for him to take on Mandarin seriously.So,he had enrolled in a two-week accelerated Mandarin course.In just a few short days Micheal had attained a very good sense of how Mandarin works as a language.He could understand a lot, and his vocabulary was building.But he had a problem—he kept speaking with a strong Cantonese accent,despite the fact that he did not know Cantonese!He wasn’t the only one.Three people in the class had the same problem, and they had all lived in Hong Kong for many years.They were mispronouncing many of the Mandarin words, using exactly the same pronunciation that a native Cantonese speaker would use.It was almost as if we were listening to a Hong Kong Chinese person speaking Mandarin for the first time.Strange!They had picked up Cantonese at an unconscious level!

Could it be that we have been asking the wrong question?Could it be that there is actually no way to stop people learning a second language?There certainly seems to be no way of stopping people from learning a first language!

Think about it.People from around the world, from every country,all speak a language.At least one.And in some places people speak two, three or even more different languages.The Dutch,for instance,often speak several languages:Dutch,German,English,French.

The more we study language, the more it becomes possible to accept that people are hard-wired to learn language.In the same way that pigeons are programmed to find their way home, we may be born with an inbuilt ability to learn language.