Yet if you monitor adults learning a second language, you find something completely mystifying. That German woman with her English textbook follows the exact same developmental stages as that Japanese guy with his American girlfriend. The German might progress through her stages faster—German, after all, is fairly similar to English—but she won’t skip any of them. Not only that, but both of these English students will follow developmental stages that closely resemble the development of child speech. Like the kids, they start out with -ing (He watching television) and only later learn is (He is
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