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"Most people say it's easier to pick up languages when you're younger," says David Green, of University College London, who specialises in bilingualism. "But p

"Most people say it's easier to pick up languages when you're younger," says David Green, of University College London, who specialises in bilingualism. "But people can learn languages at any point in their lives. Being immersed in a language is important. Personality is a contributing factor too - not being able to tolerate feeling foolish from making inevitable errors will make learning a new language a difficult process. "The cult of the hyperpolyglot" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17101370 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17101370

hessenwolf 15y ago
I'm experiencing this at the moment. I am picking up the local lingo at a relatively rapid rate compared to my peers, and I can see it is mostly down to having no sense of embarrassment. I went around saying 'Biscuit' to people for a month as a reply to 'Gruess Gott', thinking I was mimicking perfectly, and I'm okay with that.
dirtyaura 15y ago
Quite interesting. I feel that my spoken English has stuck to a certain level for an opposite reason: I don't care enough about mistakes and thus I don't actively try to improve my English. I just speak and either I get understood or try to explain my thought in another way.
kenrikm 15y ago
I was 22 when I learned my second language (Spanish) I was immersed because my (now) wife spoke very little english when I met her. My in-laws don't speak any english even though they know a lot of words because they are "scared to say it wrong" I just listened until I knew enough and then started to string together words even if the grammer was wrong, Now I'm fluent. Funny thing is if you get my mother-in-law drunk she magically starts speaking english!
david927 15y ago
David Green is wrong. It's easier to pick up languages when you're younger. Noam Chomsky discovered that the brain is specifically geared to learn languages around 3 to 6 years old. Kids at that age get the language in a way that you'll never get after. But people can learn languages at any point in their lives Of course. I learned German, from nothing to fluency, in my twenties; and the same with Czech in my thirties. But if you ask me, for example, how a German or Czech name sounds, my answer won't match with native speakers. You can get all the definitions, make no mistakes in the grammar, but you won't understand it at a deeper level. A language is way to express a culture, and the culture is gigantic and ineffible compared to the language.
- acerimmer 15y ago
  Out of curiosity, why did you learn Czech?
  - david927 15y ago
    I visited Prague and it blew me away. I kept going back; eventually met a Czech girl. In other words: for the best reasons.
    - acerimmer 15y ago
      I'm glad you liked it here :)
- paulhauggis 15y ago
  "Kids at that age get the language in a way that you'll never get after." This is just an excuse that will limit you. Yes, kids might learn at a faster rate, but they also don't do anything else but learn that language for years. Most people have busy lives which doesn't allow for this unless they completely immerse themselves. As an adult, you also have the advantage of understanding difficult concepts (because you've already learned them in your native language), which speeds up the learning process. " You can get all the definitions, make no mistakes in the grammar, but you won't understand it at a deeper level. A language is way to express a culture, and the culture is gigantic and ineffible compared to the language." Then you don't really know those languages as well as you think. Part of knowing the language is knowing the culture. This requires immersion, studying, and discipline. I've been studying Japanese for the past 5 years and I've started a couple of meetup groups in my area for studying. What I've found is that 99% of the people that try to learn a new language as an adult give up at some point. Mostly when they get to any point of difficulty. You also have to be disciplined enough to study it every single day. Something else I've learned is that the similarities between starting a business and learning a new language are actually very similar.
  - drzaiusapelord 15y ago
    >This is just an excuse that will limit you. Apoligies if I am making a strawman or unfairly characterizing you, but lately I've been seeing a lot of "Get Motivated" stuff here and on reddit that is completely false. Sorry, but children do have the "language acquisition" device. I'm bilingual and learned both my languages during those golden years. My memory as a child is amazing, and I can name scene for scene the movies I watched once as a child, yet I can barely tell you the plot of the movie I saw last month. Childhood learning and the malleable brain really isn't something in dispute. Immersion isn't remotely comparable. My wife lived for 5 years in Russia and studied the language all through college. She's no where near my childhood learned Greek which I speak maybe 5 or 6 times a year. Her Russian fades quickly too. If she's not using it, she's losing it. Oh, she speaks 4 laugnages at a proper adult level too. She needs to keep using all 4 or she will also lose them. She's no stranger to language learning or immersion. My Greek is permanent, btw, no need to practice or anything. Its forever mine. There's just something really sad about how the motivation crowd has been co-opted by the meathead sports metaphor crowd "GIVE 110%!!!!". There's science and reality at work here. Yelling and overly positive platitudes aren't helping. If anything its a disservice to the people who really are looking for answers while trying to get motivated or trying to learn a second language. Motivation and learning and hacking them is a lot more complex than just willing yourself to make it happen. There's a fair bit of complexity here, especially when people have unrealistic expectations and do not love the process of learning and trying. Loving the process, being humble, asking for advice, accepting the pain, accepting looking like an idiot, etc are far more valuable to me than the whole "TRY HARDER!!!!" sports cliche.
Too 15y ago
An interesting perspective is putting in the years of learning. Say a kid realistically starts learning a language at age 4. Add 5 years and you end up with a 9 year kid. 9 year olds are not thaaat good at language. Compare this with an adult that's been learning a completely new language for 5 years. As in seriously learning, dedicating at least one hour per day, 3-4 days per week. Plus living in the country, listening to radio, tv, etc. I think the adult will win. Even if you compare with an older kid up to maybe 13 years old, but then it's cheating because that kid has been learning the language for more than 5 years, even if you increase the "start learning definition" to age 7.

hessenwolf 15y ago

I'm experiencing this at the moment. I am picking up the local lingo at a relatively rapid rate compared to my peers, and I can see it is mostly down to having no sense of embarrassment. I went around saying 'Biscuit' to people for a month as a reply to 'Gruess Gott', thinking I was mimicking perfectly, and I'm okay with that.

dirtyaura 15y ago

Quite interesting. I feel that my spoken English has stuck to a certain level for an opposite reason: I don't care enough about mistakes and thus I don't actively try to improve my English. I just speak and either I get understood or try to explain my thought in another way.

kenrikm 15y ago

I was 22 when I learned my second language (Spanish) I was immersed because my (now) wife spoke very little english when I met her. My in-laws don't speak any english even though they know a lot of words because they are "scared to say it wrong" I just listened until I knew enough and then started to string together words even if the grammer was wrong, Now I'm fluent. Funny thing is if you get my mother-in-law drunk she magically starts speaking english!

david927 15y ago

David Green is wrong. It's easier to pick up languages when you're younger. Noam Chomsky discovered that the brain is specifically geared to learn languages around 3 to 6 years old. Kids at that age get the language in a way that you'll never get after. But people can learn languages at any point in their lives Of course. I learned German, from nothing to fluency, in my twenties; and the same with Czech in my thirties. But if you ask me, for example, how a German or Czech name sounds, my answer won't match with native speakers. You can get all the definitions, make no mistakes in the grammar, but you won't understand it at a deeper level. A language is way to express a culture, and the culture is gigantic and ineffible compared to the language.

acerimmer 15y ago
Out of curiosity, why did you learn Czech?
- david927 15y ago
  I visited Prague and it blew me away. I kept going back; eventually met a Czech girl. In other words: for the best reasons.
  - acerimmer 15y ago
    I'm glad you liked it here :)
paulhauggis 15y ago
"Kids at that age get the language in a way that you'll never get after." This is just an excuse that will limit you. Yes, kids might learn at a faster rate, but they also don't do anything else but learn that language for years. Most people have busy lives which doesn't allow for this unless they completely immerse themselves. As an adult, you also have the advantage of understanding difficult concepts (because you've already learned them in your native language), which speeds up the learning process. " You can get all the definitions, make no mistakes in the grammar, but you won't understand it at a deeper level. A language is way to express a culture, and the culture is gigantic and ineffible compared to the language." Then you don't really know those languages as well as you think. Part of knowing the language is knowing the culture. This requires immersion, studying, and discipline. I've been studying Japanese for the past 5 years and I've started a couple of meetup groups in my area for studying. What I've found is that 99% of the people that try to learn a new language as an adult give up at some point. Mostly when they get to any point of difficulty. You also have to be disciplined enough to study it every single day. Something else I've learned is that the similarities between starting a business and learning a new language are actually very similar.
- drzaiusapelord 15y ago
  >This is just an excuse that will limit you. Apoligies if I am making a strawman or unfairly characterizing you, but lately I've been seeing a lot of "Get Motivated" stuff here and on reddit that is completely false. Sorry, but children do have the "language acquisition" device. I'm bilingual and learned both my languages during those golden years. My memory as a child is amazing, and I can name scene for scene the movies I watched once as a child, yet I can barely tell you the plot of the movie I saw last month. Childhood learning and the malleable brain really isn't something in dispute. Immersion isn't remotely comparable. My wife lived for 5 years in Russia and studied the language all through college. She's no where near my childhood learned Greek which I speak maybe 5 or 6 times a year. Her Russian fades quickly too. If she's not using it, she's losing it. Oh, she speaks 4 laugnages at a proper adult level too. She needs to keep using all 4 or she will also lose them. She's no stranger to language learning or immersion. My Greek is permanent, btw, no need to practice or anything. Its forever mine. There's just something really sad about how the motivation crowd has been co-opted by the meathead sports metaphor crowd "GIVE 110%!!!!". There's science and reality at work here. Yelling and overly positive platitudes aren't helping. If anything its a disservice to the people who really are looking for answers while trying to get motivated or trying to learn a second language. Motivation and learning and hacking them is a lot more complex than just willing yourself to make it happen. There's a fair bit of complexity here, especially when people have unrealistic expectations and do not love the process of learning and trying. Loving the process, being humble, asking for advice, accepting the pain, accepting looking like an idiot, etc are far more valuable to me than the whole "TRY HARDER!!!!" sports cliche.

Too 15y ago

An interesting perspective is putting in the years of learning. Say a kid realistically starts learning a language at age 4. Add 5 years and you end up with a 9 year kid. 9 year olds are not thaaat good at language. Compare this with an adult that's been learning a completely new language for 5 years. As in seriously learning, dedicating at least one hour per day, 3-4 days per week. Plus living in the country, listening to radio, tv, etc. I think the adult will win. Even if you compare with an older kid up to maybe 13 years old, but then it's cheating because that kid has been learning the language for more than 5 years, even if you increase the "start learning definition" to age 7.