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LETTERS: Early learning not necessary

Kao Shih-fan was correct in his article ("The best time for learning English," March 25, page 8) in concluding that "the earlier the better" is not true for second language acquisition.

In early stages of second language acquisition, older children are faster than younger children and adults are faster than children.

Kao is also correct in noting that the research shows that those who begin as adults typically have some accent.

I would like to add, however, that adults and children do not use different mechanisms for language acquisition. Although adults have a greater capacity for conscious understanding of the rules of a language -- thanks to greater "abstract thinking capacities" -- this doesn't help very much. In my view, the research shows that nearly all adult second language competence, like that of children, is acquired subconsciously, by understanding messages.

Also, adults may not achieve perfection, but they often do very well, acquiring nearly all of the second language, including an extremely complex grammatical system and thousands of words.

Many of my colleagues in Taiwan are good examples of adults who have achieved high levels of competence in English. The "imperfections" in their English are very small, such as an occasional grammatical slip or a slight accent. None of them would claim that hard study was responsible for their attainment, but all have read and continue to read English a great deal and all have heard a great deal of comprehensible English, similar to the high-level English acquirers Kao has studied.

Starting English at a very early age is not necessary or even helpful. Those who start as adults can achieve very high levels of competence -- not through work and grim determination, but through enjoying good books and movies and other kinds of comprehensible input.

Stephen Krashen

Los Angeles, California

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