My Chinese Class

My Chinese Class

     I love taking Chinese with Dumei Yang. Despite my affinity for the class, however, learning Chinese as a language certainly isn't easy. There is so much to language. All languages have the same basic structural units. Phonemes are the basic units of sound in a language. Morphemes are the elementary units of meaning. 

     What makes it so hard to learn a new language is that I never learned Chinese at birth (of course). At about 4 months of age, infants babble, making a wide range of sounds found in languages located all over the world. By about 10 months, their babbling contains only the sounds found in their household language. Around 12 months of age, babies speak in single words. This one-word stage evolves into two-word (telegraphic) utterances before their second birthday. Shortly after that, children begin speaking in full sentences. 

    Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, studies show that picking up a new language becomes much more difficult after the ages from 0-7, and even more difficult than that after ages 8-16. I, now 17, am facing great difficulties picking up on Chinese, which is so difficult in that there are so many different sounds and letters. 

    It has also been interesting for me to watch how Rabbi Lubetski speaks to his children. He talks to them in hebrew at a young age, so in that period where children learn languages most, they will be able to pick up on both the Hebrew and English. Kudos to Rabbi Lubetski.