In the first concept video we talked how our basic learning instinct is to mirror the movements of other people. Then in the second video we talked about how we can put movements into categories, and use those categories to build more complex movement sequences like words and phrases.
Another thing we can do is map those categorical experience to visual symbols. So each time we see the symbol, the category of experience is conjured to mind. This is the purpose and power of written language.
But because visual symbols are so far removed from lived motor-sensory xperience, they bring the risk of being out of touch with reality. Indeed, this is what happened over the evolution of our writing systems.
The video below is from an older program. In it, I demonstrate the risks of relying too heavily on writing to learn language, and I explain why it’s important to learn the international phonetic alphabet (or better yet, my modified version of it).
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