Posted: Oct 15, 2013 8:45 am
What a fascinating thread. Weaver - I too was unaware of the DLAB.
I was raised bilingual, speaking both English and Punjabi equally regularly. I also learned Hindi/Urdu as a child, along with a smattering of Arabic. I went on to learn French and was learning Spanish for a year until life got in the way. My personal experience (for what it's worth) is that I have found it relatively easy to pick up the pronunciation of new languages, probably because my ear and vocal chords were trained as a child to get around what I call "front of mouth" languages like English and also "back of throat" languages like Arabic. Grammar and script still present huge challenges, of course!
I was raised bilingual, speaking both English and Punjabi equally regularly. I also learned Hindi/Urdu as a child, along with a smattering of Arabic. I went on to learn French and was learning Spanish for a year until life got in the way. My personal experience (for what it's worth) is that I have found it relatively easy to pick up the pronunciation of new languages, probably because my ear and vocal chords were trained as a child to get around what I call "front of mouth" languages like English and also "back of throat" languages like Arabic. Grammar and script still present huge challenges, of course!