The Linguistic Genius of Babies

Today the LINGUA FRANCA Sprachschule blog is presenting a 13-minutes video from the TED series. TED (Technology, Education, Design) is an international and interdisciplinary conference series based around the concept „ideas worth spreading“.

Why is it that we adults can invest many years of back-breaking work into learning a language (with often mixed results), while babies and young children seem to learn them effortlessly in months? The TED video below takes a closer look at this great injustice.

This video is suitable for a variety of levels. Higher-level English learners should just watch it as it is. Intermediate students – you can turn on the English subtitles on the menu at the  bottom-right of the video. Lower-level learners can go to the video on the TED website (here) and turn on the German (or the language of your choice) subtitles, as well as look at a full transcript of the talk. Enjoy!