| learners often internalize rote-learned material as chunks |
|
True in spades, as they say!
You always have to start somewhere. With a language you know
nothing of, where do you start? With other people's words.
The same as a child. The child of Russian-speaking parents
doesn't just spew forth Spanish one day. He uses other people's
words (e.g., his parents') as a starting point. The central point
of facility with language is that it is acquired through imitation (as
opposed to analysis, for example).
I find that in learning a foreign language I can get quite a bit of
mileage out of 300 - 400 set phrases which require little to no
analysis - just memorized chunks.
(An aside: I find the same thing is also true of opinions.
We all start with other people's opinions before we catch on to the
idea of how to form our own. Did you ever notice how children in
grade school inevitably have the same prejudices as their parents?)
CJ