Is It Ever Too Late to Learn a New Language? Here Are the Facts

Thrown into a new language, children keep their eyes and ears wide open. They record, they process, they produce: they learn the language without even noticing it. They’re not mulling it over.

Credit image @Wikimedia Commons

Is It Ever Too Late to Learn a New Language?

It’s you (and me) as an adult who start thinking. You compare, you ponder, you analyse.

To the point where you doubt:

  • If I learn this language now, will I really be fluent?
  • Will I keep an accent?
  • Will I be able to remember all the vocabulary?
  • Is it worth the effort if I leave this country in 2 years time?
  • What about my children?
  • Should I force them to learn a new language?
  • Am I expecting too much from them?

Answering those questions is important because it can help you

  1.  adjust expectations,
  2.  delay or anticipate a relocation,
  3.  avoid regrets till the end of your life.

 What my experience taught me

I speak 5 languages. I started to learn English (at school) when I was 11, German and Latin when I was 13, Dutch when I turned 28 and Italian when I was 35. My children are all trilingual (French, Dutch and English). They were raised bilingually from birth and acquired English later on.

My empirical conclusion is that you can learn a language at any age. You may not reach the level of a native speaker but you’ll be able to communicate efficiently and you’ll derive great pleasure from this additional skill.

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

– Nelson Mandela                          Click to tweet

 What the experts are saying

Studying second language acquisition, specialists noticed the following patterns:

1. Children and adults learn differently.

Children learn implicitly, adults learn explicitly. We (as adults) want to understand the structure of the language: the pronouns, the tenses, the adjectives. We need to memorize lists of words and conjugation patterns. We must practise the sounds, used in that particular language. Children on the other hand, don’t seek an explanation: they absorb and process a new language without the whole cognitive process described previously.

2. Children learners outperform adult learners in the long run.

From the combination of both elements was derived the critical period hypothesis (CPH).

Basically, this theory (CPH) identifies so-called “critical periods” during which we’re more likely to acquire a second language with different levels of proficiency. There are several versions of the CPH. I chose to develop the vision from Walsh & Diller (1986) and Seliger (1982).

  •  First critical period: acquiring a second language before 6-8 years

This is the best period of implicit learning. Neuroscientists justify the end of this first period by the decrease of our brain plasticity starting around age 5.

Children would be more likely to reach the native speaker fluency without any foreign accent.

This argument is supported by the type of braincells involved in the mastery of sounds. They would cease to develop around age 6-7.

  •  Second critical period: after 8 years old but before 14-16 years

Children’s language acquisition would experience some degradation compared to the previous group. Children would still be able to speak with native-like competence but with a foreign accent.

  •  After 16 years old, the exposure to a new language would definitely define you as a second language speaker, with a level of proficiency (including grammar, syntax, vocabulary and accent) never comparable to a native speaker.

As we’ve just seen, one of the most obvious features in speaking another language is accent. No matter how hard I try to speak English as a native speaker for example, people can immediately identify that I’m French!

So in order to test the validity of the CPH, I decided to run a little experiment. I recorded several persons having acquired English in different periods of their lives. They’re all reading the same text (excerpt 44 derived from the book “Tao te Ching”, authored by Lao Tsu). At the light of the critical period hypothesis and their accent, can you determine who’s who? Listen first before reading the answer.

[display_podcast]

 

Speaker #1 acquired English at 8 years old
Speaker #2 at 13 years old
Speaker #3 at 8 years old
Speaker #4 started to learn English at 13 years old (school exposure) but in full immersion only at 15 years old
Speaker #5 is a native speaker
Speaker #6 only got school exposure starting at 11 years old and full immersion at 44 years old

Are you convinced?

As appealing as this theory might sound, I had to refrain my enthusiasm. As it’s often the case dealing with human beings in all their complexity, establishing a firm rule proves to be very difficult. The more I read about the topic, the more confusing it’s becoming. One study denies the conclusion of the other. I end up finding everything and its opposite.

Conclusion

While we intuitively and correctly assume that the younger we are, the easier we learn, there are many other factors influencing the level of proficiency in a second language. Those are as diverse as personality, motivation, emotional well-being, level of self-confidence, time commitment (just to name a few). There are indeed adult learners able to achieve a native like competence in their second language, with no foreign accent!

So finally, when is the best time to learn a new language?

As soon as possible and anytime thereafter.

The best time is…. right now!

What about you? Have you ever learned a second language? What’s your experience? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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