Comments

Why You are Better Than a Baby — 14 Comments

    • Glad I made you laugh, it wasn’t my plan at first to make it funny but humor always creeps into my writing.

  1. Haha, this is great. Sure, learning a language when you’re young is great but I guarantee if I was taught Japanese at a young age I would have not kept up with it in adulthood. Which is what happened to my friends who learned Chinese from birth… they can speak somewhat, but not read or write.

    Babies also don’t have the same facination for languages that adults have!

    Thank you for all the baby pictures. They’re just too precious.

    • I remember when they taught us Spanish in elementary school. I probably learned about a couple dozen words; I had no drive to learn it.
      It’s a shame when people learn a language from their parents but they get stuck at a lower level like that.
      Looking up baby pictures was the best part of making this articles ;)

  2. Wow really puts things in perspective. I can read a Manga at 8 months old compared to the 8 years it takes a ‘native speaker’

  3. Ha, excellent article! My favorite points: “Babies are way busier than you” and “Babies aren’t even trying”. Bunch of lazy ingrates, babies are.

    And joking aside, this is pretty much true to life. People compare their language abilities to native-speaking children, but in reality most kids sound like idiots for at least the first decade of their life. Imagine how great you’ll be after a decade of immersion!

    I also like the idea of a “language baby” (though admittedly it raises some disturbing imagery, at least in my mind). My language baby is 2, going on 3 years old now, and he (she? it?) is already reading Murakami novels! Take that, stupid real-life babies!

  4. Hah! Great article. It’s reasons like this, that make me scratch my head when people say they’re too old to learn a language. We’re adults, and have Google. We can learn anything in record time.

  5. This is one of those things that leads me to the most hated compliment that I still regularly receive.

    “Wow, you can read the kanji off the sushi menu? You probably read better than my (Japanese) 8 year old.”

    Uhm… thanks? I think? That was a compliment, right?
    I always just reply “yeah, maybe” when I want to scream that I don’t probably read better than them. I DO read better than them! Can they read adult fiction and news articles understanding new topics upon first glance despite not having learned the words?!

    Can they read chemistry related documents in Japanese with full comprehension?

    Oh, can they read the sushi menu? No? Then shut it. Yes, I’m better than your 8 year old. Harumph.

    Or maybe that’s just me? lol

    • That sounds really really annoying.

      Then again no ones ever told me I’m better than an 8 year old. *cries*

  6. Funny yet true article!! Thanks for this gem haha!
    It boosted my motivation a lot. I’m still young (24 years old) but I felt down many times comparing my brain to a baby one, especially when it came to memorize new kanjis every day. You got good points and I should stop overthinking and worrying too much about something that can’t really be helped. Instead, if I enjoy my studying time and I realize I have much more potential than a kid, I’m gonna become a Japanese language king! Lol

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