Nurtured by Love

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1. 01

   Suzuki started from an observation nobody disputed and nobody had used: every child learns their mother tongue regardless of talent — so the mother-tongue method, applied to something else, ought to give the same universal result.

   Nurtured by Love · 1969

   Talent is the outcome of the method, not the condition for entering it.

   The argument is simple and therefore strong. A five-year-old Japanese child speaks Japanese fluently, a language considered difficult, without lessons, marks or selection. How? They listen from birth; they are surrounded by speakers; they repeat without pressure; they are listened to patiently; nobody compares them with other children and nobody concludes from early mistakes that they have no talent for Japanese. Suzuki transposed it point by point: the child listens to the recording of a piece for months before playing it, starts very early, learns by ear before notation, the parent attends the lesson and practises with them, and the repertoire is shared, so children constantly hear more advanced children playing what they are about to learn. The method's name, talent education, means exactly this: talent is the outcome, not the entry condition. Serious criticisms exist — the emphasis on imitation can delay reading notation, and parental involvement can slide into pressure — but the underlying thesis, that environment produces capacity, has passed the test of time.

   “Every child can. All Japanese children speak Japanese.”

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