Question

While traveling in Mexico, Ken overheard a shopkeeper say, "Encuentra la camisa verde y dársela a ese chico." Although the woman's speech sounded like a fast jumble of sounds, his one year of high school Spanish enabled him to pick out the words "verde" and "chico"—for "green" and "boy." Which term best describes Ken's experience at the shop?

Answer 1

The term that best describes Ken's experience at the shop is speech segmentation.

This term refers to learner's ability to separate words in order to make sense of what people are saying. In linguistics, speech segmentation is usually defined as the process of distinguishing boundaries between words in spoken language. The fact that Ken managed to pick out the two words while overhearing a conversation represents a positive step towards second language acquisition.