Introduction

Abstract

Had we but world enough and time ... we would want to trace foreign language learners’ development with respect to all aspects of their communicative competence in the target language and in their first language. And we would like to do so year by year from their very first steps in the acquisition process until they are able to attend conferences and business meetings in the foreign language. But, alas, we have neither the time nor the finances for all this. However, the authors of this book have been fortunate enough to obtain funding1 for a relatively large research project, which has enabled us to describe three groups of language learners on a number of language traits in both their L1 and their L2, and we are eager to share our results with the reader. We imagine our readers to be teachers, graduate students, postgraduate students and researchers who, as we do, wonder what goes on in the minds of language learners.