Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: andre@shappski.demon.co.uk (Andre Shapps)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!fas-news.harvard.edu!newspump.wustl.edu!news.ecn.bgu.edu!psuvax1!news.pop.psu.edu!hudson.lm.com!godot.cc.duq.edu!news.duke.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!gatech!swrinde!pipex!bt!btnet!peernews.demon.co.uk!shappski.demon.co.uk!andre
Subject: Re: Languages in the EC)
References: <3ia22b$1uv@access1.digex.net> <D4J1rK.CwK@cwi.nl> <D4n3vJ.IAB@cwi.nl>
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 15:42:12 +0000
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In article: <D4n3vJ.IAB@cwi.nl>  dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) writes:
> ...
> One of the remarks of the original writer was that one of his adoptive
> Russian children only recently made less errors against the irregular
> formation of the past tense of verbs (I think I have this right).
> ...

I recently heard it suggested that children learn the correct form of 
the past tense of irregular verbs quite quickly and that on the whole it is 
only later when they start realising how to form the past tense of regular 
verbs that they start getting the irregular one wrong (e.g. "I getted ...") 
leading parents to believe that their children are going backwards in learning 
ability, when in fact they are demonstrating how much they have learned.
-- 
Andre Shapps

