{"id":209,"date":"2005-05-09T13:03:30","date_gmt":"2005-05-09T18:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/?p=209"},"modified":"2005-11-27T08:20:50","modified_gmt":"2005-11-27T15:20:50","slug":"why-children-are-good-at-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/blog\/2005\/why-children-are-good-at-languages.html","title":{"rendered":"Why children are good at languages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>I can see why children are good at learning languages.<\/b> &nbsp;No, this isn&#8217;t going to be a technical blog about the psychology of language (although I&#8217;m sure that would be interesting). &nbsp;But I got thinking about this the other day when I heard Hannah singing.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Hannah likes to make up her own songs. &nbsp;I can&#8217;t imagine where she got the habit from, but she got it. &nbsp;Sometimes the songs rhyme, sometimes they don&#8217;t. &nbsp;Sometimes they make sense, more often they don&#8217;t. &nbsp;But the interesting thing is that they sound <i>like<\/i> other songs. &nbsp;For example, she makes up songs that sound <i>like<\/i> worship songs. &nbsp;They have the same kinds of phrases, the same kinds of tempo and tune.<\/p>\n<p>This is why children are good at languages (among other reasons). &nbsp;They listen to things as they are, without imposing their expectations on them.&nbsp; When Hannah hears the letter &#8220;d&#8221; in Spanish, she doesn&#8217;t think about what a d ought to sound like, or how that word is like an English word. &nbsp;She just tries to copy it like it sounds. &nbsp;We&#8217;re going to continue to learn a lot from her when it comes to Spanish!<\/p>\n<p>Then, on another topic, I got thinking about worship songs again. &nbsp;I realized that I&#8217;ve heard a lot of worship songs lately that sound like someone just wrote them to sound <i>like<\/i> a worship song. &nbsp;They have the same terminology, a catchy tune. &nbsp;Some of these songs are hits. &nbsp;But they don&#8217;t really say all that much. &nbsp;They&#8217;re all alike, more or less. &nbsp;What happened to that personal passion, that awareness of how God is working in our own lives, in our own church? &nbsp;After all He&#8217;s done, all He is, why is it that we can only think of singing,&#8221;bless the Lord&#8221; or &#8220;I worship You&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, just sounding &#8220;like&#8221; something isn&#8217;t enough. &nbsp;It&#8217;s great for kids learning a language, but eventually they need to learn to say things that are <b>real<\/b>. &nbsp;Look at the rich tapestry of emotion and praise in the Psalms. &nbsp;We all need that kind of worship that springs up from our encounters with God, His people, His world and His Word. &nbsp;Let&#8217;s engage our brains, engage our passions, and <i>really<\/i> appreciate the Almighty in reverence and awe. &nbsp;Has He done anything for you today?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can see why children are good at learning languages. &nbsp;No, this isn&#8217;t going to be a technical blog about the psychology of language (although I&#8217;m sure that would be interesting). &nbsp;But I got thinking about this the other day when I heard Hannah singing. Now, Hannah likes to make up her own songs. &nbsp;I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-and-bible","category-family","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why children are good at languages - Finding direction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cottrillcompass.com\/blog\/2005\/why-children-are-good-at-languages.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why children are good at languages - Finding direction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I can see why children are good at learning languages. &nbsp;No, this isn&#8217;t going to be a technical blog about the psychology of language (although I&#8217;m sure that would be interesting). &nbsp;But I got thinking about this the other day when I heard Hannah singing. 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