Native Language Affects How a Child Learns Numbers

An international team of researchers studying linguistics found that toddlers who speak different native languages learn to count faster or slower than others.

An international team of researchers studying linguistics found that toddlers who speak different native languages learn to count at faster or slower rates than their peers.

Using the letter 's' to make English words plural such as one dog, two dogs, reportedly slows the process for children to learn the word for 'two', compared to that for children from Slovenia where language uses different words for singular or plural nouns.

But English speaking children reportedly learn the word for one quicker than children whose native language is Japanese or Chinese.

The researchers studied groups of two to four year old children who spoke either English, Arabic, or Slovenian.

Data from the study shows that 42 percent of Slovenian speaking two year olds knew the word for two, compared with only 4 percent of English speaking children that age.

Arabic and Slovenian speaking children involved in the study were also more likely to know the word for the number 2 than Russian, Chinese and Japanese children based on data from previous research.

There was very little difference between the counting abilities of children who spoke either Arabic or Slovenian, and as the children got older, English speakers could reportedly count higher than Slovenian speakers.

What do you think about the different counting abilities of children based on their native languages?