watch it: “Brian Cox Masterclass with Theo”

Saw this a couple of months ago. Very cute.

Undeniably one sweet kid. It has got me thinking about language, and how we learn it, though. A child that small cannot possibly have understood most of the words he was repeating, and yet he repeated them very easily. How does the connection in the brain get made between that odd sound that he pops back at BC, and the meaning behind it?

It’s like reading – scientists thought that our brains pretty much do what we do when we teach a child to read – sound out the ‘k’ ‘aaa’ ‘tuh’ to make ‘cat’. But then, if you keep the frsit and lsat ltrtes of a wrod the smae, you can raed it esialy eevn tghouh you cna’t psoblisy snuod the wrod out.

Ahh, an actor who takes direction well. That’s rare!