The gap between knowing and speaking
Heritage speakers understand everything but can't speak. Textbook learners can explain grammar but freeze in conversation. The reason is the same: comprehension and production, knowledge and skill, live in separate systems.
9 min read
The learning machine you were born with
Every three-year-old on Earth masters a language through statistical learning, pattern extraction, and implicit grammar building. That same mechanism is still running in your adult brain.
9 min read
Speech is a motor skill
Your mouth has spent decades optimizing for your native language. Speaking a new one means training new motor patterns, and that training looks more like learning an instrument than learning facts.
9 min read
You were born hearing every language
12 min read
The ten thousand hours behind 'hello'
7 min read
The stuck feeling is the learning
6 min read
Not all input is created equal
7 min read
Adults have every advantage (and misuse all of them)
6 min read
We read words, not letters
9 min read