We all know kids can learn 2 and sometimes 3 languages as babies if they are consistently exposed to those languages. They seem to pick up languages to the level of fluency adults would never attain.
Is something similar going on with chess? Every once in a blue moon a parent will bring their child to the chess club where I frequently play. The child will watch a few games and then want to play. The younger the child, the more amazed I am at the "fluency" kids can achieve when learning chess. It looks effortless, like a dance on the board with hardly a moment given to process each move. I remember watching a 6 year old outwit a friend of mine who plays better than I do... On the one hand, I was glad he got humbled (heehee), but on the other, I was shocked at how expertly the kid played... No blunders...quick checkmate... It almost seemed boring for the kid, like he knew 6 moves ahead at every stage.
What is going on in these young minds?
And
Is there any hope for an adult to gain this level of skill as well if they didn't play chess as a child?
You have spotted the problem.
Chess is rather procedural like riding a bike. And not collecting dry chunks of declarative wisdom.
> Is learning chess like learning a language?
Yes I think it's true, even though I think most people would not believe it.
its a good analogy: you aquire letters (rules), words (basic tactics, checkmates and opening principles), small chunks of words (checkmate patterns, 2-3 move tactics, first opening repertoir), sentences (deeper tactics, more extensive prep, rook and pawn endgames) to slowly but surely piece them together so you can read a newspaper (which is the chess board/position). a difference is you dont need any kind of visualisation when reading a newspaper from left to right, just memorisation and pattern recognition to speed up the process, while in chess the patterns are way more chaotic and you need to be able to flip them in any 90º trajectory.
>aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
another obvious difference is that you dont really need your ears for chess. to reach the grandmaster level of holding fluid, decent conversations rather than just reading a newspaper in a foreign language you also need to train your hearing and listen allot.
I'm sure there must be parallels between language and chess (after all chess can be written in PGN notation that is a very regular language). If we are to believe our new masters of neural networks then if you train on enough data with enough parameters a 'ChessGPT' could learn the language of chess and in doing so internalise a model of the chess world.
colab.research.google.com/github/tailuge/experiments/blob/master/ChessGPT.ipynbI tried training one on a tiny amount of lichess data... so far it tries to castle on move one, so the kids are still better.
Chess is like learning math, the Opportunists and faint of heart give up when they sink in the swamp of complexity.
But the truly fortunate go on in their Journey, and be rewarded with a kingdom of wonder.
Straight and narrow is the way, dont let worldly wise man fool you with Alibis like only kids can learn.
Thats the kind of excuse all mediocre people use.
@Letpchess said in #1:
> We all know kids can learn 2 and sometimes 3 languages as babies if they are consistently exposed to those languages. They seem to pick up languages to the level of fluency adults would never attain.
>
> Is something similar going on with chess? Every once in a blue moon a parent will bring their child to the chess club where I frequently play. The child will watch a few games and then want to play. The younger the child, the more amazed I am at the "fluency" kids can achieve when learning chess. It looks effortless, like a dance on the board with hardly a moment given to process each move. I remember watching a 6 year old outwit a friend of mine who plays better than I do... On the one hand, I was glad he got humbled (heehee), but on the other, I was shocked at how expertly the kid played... No blunders...quick checkmate... It almost seemed boring for the kid, like he knew 6 moves ahead at every stage.
>
> What is going on in these young minds?
> And
> Is there any hope for an adult to gain this level of skill as well if they didn't play chess as a child?
Sure, once every blue moon this will happen. How many parents do expose kids at a young age to chess (or soccer, or baseball, or whatever), and you never ever hear about those kids because they never play well enough to gather attention?
Most children, even before becoming adults, master at least one language without actively studying it. Hardly anyone masters chess very well, and noone does so without studying.
So, no, I don't see any suggestion of any evidence learning chess is even remotely the same as learning a language.
I think there is some degree of similarity between learning chess and learning a language. I think I would be a better player than I am if I had learnt younger.
When I was 9 my parents separated and I moved to a different town. I tried playing chess at my new school, but I got beaten easily by a boy in my class who was not good academically. That made me feel stupid, so I stopped. I didn't play again until I was 39, when I taught my wife the rules. Or at least, most of the rules: I wasn't sure about queenside castling, to give you an idea of my level, is it e1c1 or e1b1? Then I didn't play with anyone outside my family until I was 50. So you can see that I am a late beginner, and I think this explains why I am only mediocre. I have a maths degree and worked as a scientific and financial programmer for many years, so you might think that I have the right sort of brain. But if you don't have early experience, and ideally a good teacher to start you off, I think it is much harder to scale the heights.
Generally, kids can learn most things faster than older people. For several reasons, their mind is more pure, they tend to be more curious, they have more time, and they are less busy worrying about many other things.
They usually struggle with the kind of knowledge that requires a lot of preliminary work to build up some experience, and that requires discipline.
Chess is based on few rules. So, at least at the initial phase of learning, it is perfect for kids. That said, it is worth noting that usually the strongest players are older than 18, so experience does play a role in chess as well.
As for the hope for adults, it depends on the goal. You're not going to win the WCC if you start learning when you're 30, but if you work hard I guess you can very well get to 2200+ .
I agree with you, esmiro. Young kids have more time to learn and are not normally concerned with issues that adults have to deal with. I taught a foreign language to kids (and adults) of all ages from six upwards. One of the reasons the children learned faster was because they were not self conscious. If they made a mistake, it didn't bother them. On the other hand, the adults were more self critical if they pronounced a word wrongly. Many of them considered themselves to be 'stupid', despite the fact that I was never critical of them. I strongly believe that anyone can get good at chess, music, etc., if they apply themselves. I have taught people who were in their late sixties, and if they studied hard, they got good. I know a lady who started playing the cello at the age of eighty. She practiced three hours a day, and got to grade five, which is pretty good, in four years. Many younger people take longer.
