Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions. HOW WE LEARN A LANGUAGE The first language you learn to speak is called your native language. As a baby, you listened to your parents or other people speaking and then imitated the sounds you heard. Babies seem to be born with an ability to learn the language they hear. Native speakers learn as children to use the right words and arrange them in the right ...

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.

HOW WE LEARN A LANGUAGE

The first language you learn to speak is called your native language. As a baby, you listened to your parents or other people speaking and then imitated the sounds you heard. Babies seem to be born with an ability to learn the language they hear.

Native speakers learn as children to use the right words and arrange them in the right order without even thinking about it. If English is your native language, you know automatically that “I going bed” is wrong, but “I am going to bed” is right.

If you learn a second language, you have to memorize its words and learn its rules. That’s why learning a second language can be difficult.Young children can learn a new language very easily. If they are surrounded by people speaking a different language, they soon learn to speak it as well as their native language.

But as people grow older, it becomes more difficult to learn new languages. People gradually lose the ability to learn the grammar and pronounce the sounds of another language. People who learn a new language as adults usually have a “foreign accent” when they speak it.

(Source: Microsoft Encarta)

According to the passage, a native language is ........