There's a reason why toddlers learn so "easily": They must communicate in order to get what they want. If you were placed in a similar situation, where you can

There's a reason why toddlers learn so "easily": They must communicate in order to get what they want. If you were placed in a similar situation, where you cannot get what you want unless you speak the language, it would not take you very long to learn. I went through this twice in my life: Once between ages 5 and 16 (French), and once between ages 31 and 35 (Japanese). In both cases, it took about 6 months to get the basics, after which the rate of learning slowed a bit due to the decline in novel situations requiring new usage or vocabulary.