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Book Cover
E-book
Author Roberts, Richard (Richard Miller), 1959- author.

Title Becoming fluent : how cognitive science can help adults learn a foreign language / Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz
Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2015]
©2015

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Description 1 online resource (xviii, 226 pages) : illustrations
Contents Prologue -- Terms and conditions -- Set yourself up for success -- Aspects of language -- Pragmatics and culture -- Language and perception -- Cognition from top to bottom -- Making memories -- And making memories work for you -- Epilogue
Summary "Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages--gained from experience--of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language. Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding"--MIT CogNet
Analysis LINGUISTICS & LANGUAGE/General
COGNITIVE SCIENCES/General
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-210) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Cognitive neuroscience.
Second language acquisition.
Language acquisition.
MEDICAL -- Physiology.
SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Human Anatomy & Physiology.
Cognitive neuroscience
Language acquisition
Second language acquisition
Form Electronic book
Author Kreuz, Roger J., author
ISBN 9780262330466
0262330466
9780262330473
0262330474