Second language acquisition

The twelfth entry is l’âge de début d’acquisition, and the noun in the middle of it is the one an English reader will misread. English borrowed « debut » from French and kept only its grandest corner: a first appearance before an audience, a first novel, a first cap for the national side. French never narrowed it. Le début is the beginning of anything, however small and however private: au début is at first, début mars is early March, le début d’une grippe is the first day or two of flu, and les débuts are somebody’s early days in a new job. So the age this entry names is the age of onset, the moment a child or an adult first began to meet the language, and nobody was watching. The same drift runs through the whole family. Un débutant is simply a beginner, the person in the front row of an evening class, and has nothing to do with a « debutante » at a ball. Débuter is to start out, and il débute en allemand means he is a beginner in German. Read every one of them as « beginning » and none of them will go wrong.