The information our brain needs to learn a language could almost fit on a floppy disk

To master English as a native speaker, the average adult has to learn almost as much information as the contents of a full floppy disk, experts estimate. That amount of information translates to 12.5 million bits or roughly 1.5 megabytes (mb), while the iconic storage device holds 1.44mb of information. The data is mostly in the form of word definitions rather than complex structures like grammar. This is the first time that researchers have tried try to work out the amount of information our brains need to store in order to master a single language. Researchers from the University of Rochester in New York analysed different aspects of language learning and found the average learner acquires nearly 2,000 bits of information about how language works daily.