Danish children struggle to learn their vowel-filled language – and this changes how adult Danes interact
Morten H. Christiansen and Fabio Trecca write about their research from The Puzzle of Danish project
Outtake
"Denmark is a rich country with an extensive welfare system and strong education. Yet surprisingly, Danish children have trouble learning their mother tongue. Compared to Norwegian children, who are learning a very similar language, Danish kids on average know 30% fewer words at 15 months and take nearly two years longer to learn the past tense. In "Hamlet," William Shakespeare famously wrote that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” but he might as well have been talking about the Danish language."
Read the full article by Morten H. Christiansen and Fabio Trecca here.
About the research project
The Puzzle of Danish is a research project that explores the idea that not all languages are equally easy to learn and use by studying language processing at the phonological, sentential, and dialogic level in Danish.
The Puzzle of Danish project is supported by DFF-Research Project Grant from the Danish Council for Independent Research awarded to Professor Morten H. Christiansen.
Read more about the project here.
Details
"Danish children struggle to learn their vowel-filled language – and this changes how adult Danes interact", published by The Conversation, theconversation.com.
