It is widely believed that extensive exposure to foreign languages will make learning them easier. According to this view, students will pick up languages faster if they are simply surrounded by them. Research in the United States, however, indicates that this is not always the case.
'There is no credible evidence to support the 'time on task' theory of language learning,' James Crawford of the Washington-based Centre for Applied Linguistics said. 'Research shows that what counts is not just the quantity, but the quality of exposure,' Mr Crawford wrote in ERIC Digest, an on-line languages and linguistics site.
Anecdotal evidence would indicate that he might have a point. Many foreigners spend years living in Hong Kong - where they are surrounded by Cantonese - and yet never learn more than a few words of it. Some Chinese, meanwhile, emigrate to other countries and never become fluent in the local language.