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> Statistically, if you know programming, you probably learned it in a tertiary education setting, most likely in your late teens or early twenties. Just like l

> Statistically, if you know programming, you probably learned it in a tertiary education setting, most likely in your late teens or early twenties. Just like learning a foreign language at that age, you'll never be perfectly fluent. You'll always have an accent, no matter what you do. I appreciate your story, but this comment bothered me, because it's something people repeat a lot and it's actually not true. There's no good evidence that adults have more difficulty acquiring language than children. There were some older studies that claimed to show such, but as has become all too familiar these days, their methods were spurious and there have been some replication issues. I work for a company whose entire purpose for the last 35 years has been making fluent speakers of adults. We do it. We do it regularly. Our students are diplomats and military personnel. They don't really get a choice of whether they study a particular language. It's their job and they have to do it. The reason adults fail to gain fluency in foreign language is because they don't do the work. They choose to do other things. There is no fundamental limit on the language acquisition abilities of adults, if they just stop bitching about homework and put the effort in. And I firmly believe the same is true about programming. I didn't start programming until I was 16. I didn't even have a computer until I was 15. I'm almost 40 years old now and I'm the head software engineer for my company. The people I see who struggle with programming who have been at it for years, they're the ones who have approached their entire career under the attitude of "I am not very good at this, I need to find easy, quick fixes for things". Rather than putting the effort in to learn, they cheap out and never grow. It may feel like growth is not a linear function of effort all the time. Sometimes you feel like you're banging your head against a wall, not understanding things, and not progressing. That's mostly just feeling. I've had it several times myself and have been surprised to find, coming back to a topic several months later, that the topic much easier to understand on the 2nd go. Even when we subjectively feel like we aren't learning and aren't progressing, we still actually are.

emptysongglass 5y ago
Can people like me hire your company to teach a language at a higher level?
- moron4hire 5y ago
  Yes, you can. We take on individuals regularly: https://www.dlsdc.com https://www.dlsdc.com
alecst 5y ago
> There's no good evidence that adults have more difficulty acquiring language than children. This kind of rocked me, because in my experience, kids have a clear and obvious advantage compared to adults. They can completely passively acquire a language, phonology and grammar, with no training, in a matter of 5 years or so. And that's completely passively, no education, no effort. I totally buy that you can turn an adult into a fluent speaker. And I get that it's good for your business to show adults that it's not impossible. But it's like a million times easier for kids, isn't it?
- PMan74 5y ago
  > in a matter of 5 years or so Wouldn't anybody master a language in 5 years? I'm assuming you're talking about a situation where you are immersed in the language.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  As the other comment says, it's all about the immersion. If you're locked somewhere with no way to communicate except to learn a new language, you'll learn it pretty fast. There might be an upper age limit on learning it fluently, but I wouldn't bet on it. If anything, adults have an advantage that they have settled down a bit and can study effectively on their own, instead of just passive and forced learning. Of course, they still have all the temptation to just screw around, too. And if you're not actually locked to that new language, the old language is incredibly tempting.
- codethief 5y ago
  > in my experience, kids have a clear and obvious advantage compared to adults Their advantage is that they have almost unlimited time. Consider how long it takes for a child to speak their first word and, then, to actually speak in well-formed sentences: Several months, even years, of complete immersion and 24/7 exposure to native speakers. Now compare this to an adult attending a language class for the first time. Chances are, by the end of that class, they will be able to say their first words or even sentences, will understand these words' & sentences' meaning and in which contexts to apply them. Adults are orders of magnitude faster at learning new languages because they already know most of the concepts a new language's words and grammatical structures can refer to. (We all inhabit the same planet, after all.) The only problem is: Learning all the intricacies of a language, of its grammar and vocabulary, of its melody and accent takes time and lots of continued exposure to native speakers. Adults usually don't (want to) spend that time – whether that's a conscious decision or an unconscious one.
iafisher 5y ago
> I appreciate your story, but this comment bothered me, because it's something people repeat a lot and it's actually not true. There's no good evidence that adults have more difficulty acquiring language than children. There were some older studies that claimed to show such, but as has become all too familiar these days, their methods were spurious and there have been some replication issues. According to a 2018 paper [1], the ability to acquire new languages declines steeply after age 17. [1] Hartshorne, Joshua K., Joshua B. Tenenbaum and Steven Pinker. 2018. A critical period for second language acquisition: evidence from 2/3 million English speakers. Cognition 177:263-277. https://l3atbc-public.s3.amazonaws.com/pub_pdfs/JK_Hartshorne_JB_Tenenbaum_S_Pinker_2018.pdf https://l3atbc-public.s3.amazonaws.com/pub_pdfs/JK_Hartshorn...

emptysongglass 5y ago

Can people like me hire your company to teach a language at a higher level?

moron4hire 5y ago
Yes, you can. We take on individuals regularly: https://www.dlsdc.com https://www.dlsdc.com

alecst 5y ago

> There's no good evidence that adults have more difficulty acquiring language than children. This kind of rocked me, because in my experience, kids have a clear and obvious advantage compared to adults. They can completely passively acquire a language, phonology and grammar, with no training, in a matter of 5 years or so. And that's completely passively, no education, no effort. I totally buy that you can turn an adult into a fluent speaker. And I get that it's good for your business to show adults that it's not impossible. But it's like a million times easier for kids, isn't it?

PMan74 5y ago
> in a matter of 5 years or so Wouldn't anybody master a language in 5 years? I'm assuming you're talking about a situation where you are immersed in the language.
wccrawford 5y ago
As the other comment says, it's all about the immersion. If you're locked somewhere with no way to communicate except to learn a new language, you'll learn it pretty fast. There might be an upper age limit on learning it fluently, but I wouldn't bet on it. If anything, adults have an advantage that they have settled down a bit and can study effectively on their own, instead of just passive and forced learning. Of course, they still have all the temptation to just screw around, too. And if you're not actually locked to that new language, the old language is incredibly tempting.
codethief 5y ago
> in my experience, kids have a clear and obvious advantage compared to adults Their advantage is that they have almost unlimited time. Consider how long it takes for a child to speak their first word and, then, to actually speak in well-formed sentences: Several months, even years, of complete immersion and 24/7 exposure to native speakers. Now compare this to an adult attending a language class for the first time. Chances are, by the end of that class, they will be able to say their first words or even sentences, will understand these words' & sentences' meaning and in which contexts to apply them. Adults are orders of magnitude faster at learning new languages because they already know most of the concepts a new language's words and grammatical structures can refer to. (We all inhabit the same planet, after all.) The only problem is: Learning all the intricacies of a language, of its grammar and vocabulary, of its melody and accent takes time and lots of continued exposure to native speakers. Adults usually don't (want to) spend that time – whether that's a conscious decision or an unconscious one.

iafisher 5y ago

> I appreciate your story, but this comment bothered me, because it's something people repeat a lot and it's actually not true. There's no good evidence that adults have more difficulty acquiring language than children. There were some older studies that claimed to show such, but as has become all too familiar these days, their methods were spurious and there have been some replication issues. According to a 2018 paper [1], the ability to acquire new languages declines steeply after age 17. [1] Hartshorne, Joshua K., Joshua B. Tenenbaum and Steven Pinker. 2018. A critical period for second language acquisition: evidence from 2/3 million English speakers. Cognition 177:263-277. https://l3atbc-public.s3.amazonaws.com/pub_pdfs/JK_Hartshorne_JB_Tenenbaum_S_Pinker_2018.pdf https://l3atbc-public.s3.amazonaws.com/pub_pdfs/JK_Hartshorn...