Passage Two How does it happen that children learn
their mother tongue so well When we compare with adults learning a foreign
11.______ language, we
often find this interesting fact. A little child without knowledge or
experience often succeeds to a complete
12.______ master of the language. A grown-up person with fully developed
13.______ mental powers, in most cases, may end
up in a faulty and inex- 14.______ act command.
What accounts of this difference
15.______ Despite
other explanations, the real answer in my opinion lies partly with the child
himself, partly in the behavior of the 16.______ people
surround him. In the first place, the time of learning the
17.______ mother tongue is the most favorably of all, namely, the first
18.______ years of life. A child hears it
speak from morning till night and, 19.______ what is more
important, always in its genuine form, with the right pronunciation, right
intonation, right use of words and right structure. He drinks all the words
and expressions which come to 20.______ him in a fresh,
ever-bubbling spring. There is no resistance: there is perfect
assimilation.