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    Two concepts – acquisition and learning – play key roles in the study of language. Although there are people who use the two terms interchangeably, in reality they embody two different processes in the development of communicative competence. Language acquisition is an intuitive and subconscious process, similar to that of children when they develop their mother tongue – natural, incidental, and often unconscious. Language learning, by contrast, is a conscious process that involves studying rules and structures.

    Talking about the rules and structures of a language not only implies knowing the grammatical and spelling rules, but also understanding how that language is used in social contexts. For example, to show affection in a personal letter, we can say goodbye with “sending you hugs and kisses”, but not with “I would like to provide you with a hug”. Understanding which words tend to appear together and the level of formality they carry (known as “register”) is part of knowing a language.

    By understanding acquisition and learning, we can improve our performance as learners. Immersing ourselves in an environment where the language we want to learn is used can foster acquisition, as can classes that encourage more communicative ways of learning which replicate situations that could arise in real contexts. Nevertheless, a grammatical explanation will help us to learn the rules of the language. The key is to combine the two approaches.

(Vazquez-Calvo, B. 2023. Adaptado)