Courses, instructors, etc all fall short because ultimately mastery requires deep and prolonged immersion which the author and many people post-middle age never

Courses, instructors, etc all fall short because ultimately mastery requires deep and prolonged immersion which the author and many people post-middle age never commit to. Her kids live in France yet she talks in English at home, doesn't watch TV/movies in French, and doesn't read much in French (inferred from one of her comments) - all her choices and all sufficiently big deal to 100% explain her lack of mastery. I'm far from convinced based on anything in this article that learning languages is actually harder for middle aged people at all vs kids. Consider typical 2nd language education in the US: 1hr/day for 4 years during highschool - those 14-18yr olds speak terribly also and the reason has nothing to do with age.