Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!iuvax!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!markh
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: How fast can one learn a language? (Re: IQ is not static ...)
Message-ID: <3800@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Date: 12 Aug 89 04:46:32 GMT
References: <3549@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <4431@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <3558@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <504@dcdwest.UUCP> <3612@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> <485@edai.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lines: 39

* In article <3612@csd4.milw.wisc.edu> markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
*
* So back to my original point: whatever intelligence I possess that is over an
* beyond what is regarded as normal intelligence is solely the result of my
* own special training in the learning process itself...
<those who are "behind" what is regarded as normal or high intelligence can
catch up, with the right training, in due time>

In article <485@edai.ed.ac.uk> cam@edai (Chris Malcolm) writes:
* Your phrase "in due time" is interesting.

More specific, you ask?  Okay, then let's say a month in a highly intense
and special course to, say, become proficient in (... let's find something
real "hard" ...) Newtonian Physics.  That's what I mean by "in due time".

    If you're really lacking a Phyysical intuition, we may even have to
start with manipulating blocks in the beginning of the month and work our
way up from there.  Two months then.

    Of course, in virtue of the meta-experience you've accquired in the process
(a crucial part of the whole argument), if I erased what you learned on the
specific subject and we started again, then let's say 3 weeks the second time.
15 days the third time, 12 the fourth, etc.  All this because you've learned
how to learn.  Understand?

     What, indeed, are our limits?  Well this is a question that has come to
mind a couple days ago.  With the right material and right kind of training:

     How fast can a human being master the basic essentials of a human language?

I offer the following challenge:  I believe that it is possible to accquire a
long-term grasp of the basic vocabulary (say 500 syntatic/function morphemes,
2000 basic specialized vocabulary items), and basic syntax in 1 day.

     My challenge is for you readers to try it, and find a way to do it.  This
is a simple experiment I've tried an innumerable times since the age of 8, 
but it's only been recently that I've begun to truly master the skill of
learning a new language (the crucial experience was in having learned one
while living in the foreign nation, but not in a day).