One reason why this myth has arisen may be that we are more tolerant of the mistakes of children than of older learners or adults. As an illustration of this, imagine that you are a German bank clerk, living in Frankfurt. On your way to work, you meet your American neighbour's 3 year old child, who is attending German kindergarten. The child says Guck, ich habe ein neuen Ball. (Look, I have a new ball.) You will probably think How cute!You note how well she's learning German, and may not even register the mistake in the indefinite article (it should be einen instead of ein). You get to work and the first customer you see is a British woman who wants to deposit some cash. She says: Ich will DM500 auf meines Sparkonto überweisen. Now you will probably not think How cute, but will you thinkHer German is good! or will you say: Es muss: auf mein Sparkonto sein(correcting the faulty ending in the possessive pronoun)? Of course this is an unfair stereotyping of German bank clerks (although exactly this happened to a British colleague in the bank in her second year here in Germany). However, it does prove the point that we are generally more patient and forgiving of the mistakes of young children than of adults. Indeed, although