Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today, we're going to talk about why it's easier for children to learn a new language, and whether band names and team names are singular or plural.

This first segment is by Saiel Graves, who has a PhD in linguistics and is the assistant

director of ILETC, the Institute for Language, Education in Transcultural Context, at the CUNY Graduate

Center. Her research was recently published in the Journal of Pragmatics

and American Speech. You can find her at sialgraves.com. So first, we're going to talk about

language fluency and how people learn language. Linguists actually use the verb acquire instead of

learn because it better describes the way babies speak their first language, largely without any active or conscious effort, which is very different from the way an adult studies a language.

Many of these facts about language may seem familiar to those of you with children or who speak or used to speak

more than one language. As we describe language acquisition, remember that this process applies

to any human language. There's a universal process in language acquisition, no matter how

different languages sound on the surface.

Although most of us know how challenging it can be to learn a second language in high school,

most people don't realize how remarkable that makes the speed and effortlessness with which

children acquire their first language. It's also a common misconception that children

are taught how to speak. Most scholars agree that even imitation plays only a limited role,

while the baby's brain, which comes equipped with specialized areas like Wernicke's and Broca's,

plays a large role.

It's also surprising to learn that parents actually correct children very little, and even when they do, it has little effect. Studies show that while parents may correct children when

they say inaccurate things, like calling someone by the wrong name,

they seldom correct children when they make grammatical errors, like I eated that, or I have two

foots. Many of us find these temporary mistakes too cute to correct, and further, many parents

who try to correct grammar in young children notice that their children seem impervious to the corrections and continue to make the minor error until they're ready to produce the correct term themselves.

...