I found these readings to be particularly interesting,informative, and relevant. The first item that I found interesting correlated the dominant hand with the dominant side of the brain. For example, the left side of the brain dominates the functions of a right-handed person. The strengths within this person are that they are analytical thinkers,categorization, logical information, information sequencing, and language. I am a right handed person and I completely agree that these fall into some of my strengths.
The cerebral locations and functions provided by each also struck me as interesting. This will account for why I am able to learn a language. The "area in front of the fissure of Rolando" controls moto functioning, which further dictates the ability to speak and write. "Wernicke's area" allows for the comprehension of speech, while "Bruca's area" accounts for human's ability to encode speech.
Then, the readings discuss the breakdown of learning languages. First, we need to understand the semantics( i.e. how meaning is expressed and understood within a language). Idioms fall into this category and that really interests me. I know that I wanted to use English idioms when I was speaking in Spanish, but you cannot directly translate those while keeping the intended meaning. Then, there are the grammar elements that need to be learned (i.e. sentence structure, word order). Finally, the speech, writing, and sign of a particular language should be mastered.
The last comparison I will mention is between sense and reference. "Sense" is the meaning of a word within a language and "reference" is what a word refers to in the world outside of the language. This is especially important to learn , so that you do not offend others in the target language.
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