There was an instance where an incorrect past participle caused a lot of confusion. One of our missionaries was attacked by a large dog. An ambulance came to take him to the hospital, leaving his new missionary companion to run on foot, about a half-mile to the nearest church member’s home. Breathless, this new elder who still struggled with the intricacies of French, babbled excitedly about a big dog and that his missionary companion had been bitten. The problem occurred when he used the wrong past participle: mordu in French means bitten–mort means dead. Over the next several hours, a series of unfortunate phone calls made their way across the Atlantic Ocean to Church headquarters. Luckily, they were able to get things sorted after mistakenly notifying the elder’s parents that he was dead.

In response to the question of whether or not this blog is still active…  Yes, it is.  FL Doc has merely been busy upon starting summer employment last month.  I’m entering my last week of said employ, which will be followed by a week out of town to visit the family.  Soon thereafter, what I hope will be my final year in my PhD studies will commence, and my normal blogging output will resume.  Will this year hold many a whiney blog post about dissertation writing???  I’d casually estimate the chances at about 10 to 1 for…

New research is showing just how children’s brains can become bilingual so easily, findings that scientists hope eventually could help the rest of us learn a new language a bit easier.

“We think the magic that kids apply to this learning situation, some of the principles, can be imported into learning programs for adults,” says Dr. Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, who is part of an international team now trying to turn those lessons into more teachable technology.

Longtime readers of this blog will note that I’ve hit most of the phonological points discussed in this article, but nonetheless, it’s a good primer for how childhood bilingualism develops, and likewise why it can be so difficult later to learn a new language in life…