I have heard countless people say that learning your first language is quite different than
learning a second or third, and that you can never really learn a second language just
as well as your mother tongue. That if you don’t learn a language while young, you’ll
never sound like a native speaker.
But is that really true?
Hi, my name is Luca from LucaLampariello.com and today I am going to discuss whether or
not children really are better language learners than adults.
So when you look at the research, the overwhelming evidence seems to point to the fact that children
are fantastically effective language learners and that adults are, in fact, fantastically
poor ones.
So much so, in fact, that a lot of language learning apps use “learn like a kid” as
a tagline to suggest that if you use their product, you’ll learn the language at a
much deeper and intuitive level than you would otherwise.
You hear it said that “children are just incredible learners, they absorb everything,
they learn so fast”.
We hear this so often that it’s easy to take for granted, especially in the domain
of language learning. Children are obviously marvelously skilled language learners who
can master a language in a fraction of the time an adult could.
But the truth is that things are more complicated than that.
Recently, I stumbled upon a very interesting article discussing results of a study led
by MIT scientists.
The study found that (and I quote)“if you start learning a language before the age of
18, you have a much better likelihood of obtaining a native-like mastery of the language’s
grammar than if you start later. This is a much older age than has been generally assumed
and is really interesting for reasons I’ll get into a bit later. This data has also given
us a really amazing insight into language learning in general and shows that adults
of any age can obtain incredible mastery nearly as quickly as children”.
I’m happy to say that these findings are in line with my own, personal experience as
a long-time language learner.
In fact, thanks to the very first video I made on YouTube twelve years ago, I have come
into contact with dozens of incredible language learners who have acquired native-like skills
across a wide range of languages. In some cases, these people have attained master in
one or two languages well beyond the age of 20.
So, what did the study at MIT find that contradicts the widespread belief that if you don’t
learn a language before you hit puberty, you are doomed to speak like Tarzan.
Here is my take on it:
For the sake of simplicity and brevity: let me break it down into three main areas :
limiting beliefs, psychological obstacles and life circumstances
Let’s talk about Limiting Beliefs
I know it sounds ridiculous, but theoretically, while school is designed or at least intended
to be the place where we “learn stuff”, sometimes it is the place where we actually
UNLEARN things we used to do quite well and spontaneously. That’s surely the case of
language learning.
Before you enter school, there are no oral tests, no grades, and no judgment bestowed
upon you for using the wrong verb or preposition in your mother tongue. You acquire language
within a positive emotional environment that does not judge your ability, but rather fosters
communication.
When adults learn a foreign language, their learning approach has changed drastically;
it has been molded to fit the learning style that is enforced in schools, and at university.
Think about it.
How many times have you avoided speaking a language fearing of being judged? Or felt
ashamed when someone pointed out a mistake you made?
How many times have you avoided interacting in a foreign language because you were afraid
to mess up? Or told yourself that the time for speaking will come someday, but not today?
As an adult language learner, all of those doubts and limiting beliefs only slow you
down.
As a child learning to speak your mother tongue, you didn’t have any of that. You just used
the language to cooperate, play, and communicate.
Fortunately for adult language learners all hope is not lost: you can still learn to play
and communicate through your target language, just as kids do.
In fact, through trial and error and experience, adults who have experience with language learning
become proficient, proactive, and at times fearless learners, who use their target language
in all possible situations and environments. Let’s talk about psychological obstacles
Beyond the presence or absence of limiting beliefs, there are also significant differences
in the way that children and adults learn, and how well those learning methods cooperate
with the way the brain naturally learns and absorbs new information.
Let me give an example we’re all familiar with: vocabulary lists.
If you’ve ever been in a language class before, you’ve experienced what it’s like
to be given a list of foreign language words to memorize.
Maybe you decided to learn these words by repeating them out loud to yourself, over
and over. Or maybe you were told to write down the word (and its translation) several
times, until you had properly memorized it.
Whichever way you used, in that moment you were practicing what is called “rote memorization”,
which is probably the memorization technique most often promoted in school.
What most people don’t know is that rote memorization is a very brain-unfriendly way
of learning anything. Studies have shown that even if you spend hours trying to “cram”
information into your head through memorization, it won’t stick in your head—at least not
for very long.
Now think about how small children learn language; Have you ever seen a baby holding a vocabulary
list? I don’t think so.
Children learn language in the most natural way possible—through context! They see and
hear a word being used over and over in specific situations, and then they just naturally connect
the word to its appropriate meaning.
And here’s the thing: kids aren’t perfect at this. Children make mistakes with language
all the time. But if they make a mistake, and use a word wrong, they don’t stop and
cry about it—they just adjust their understanding of the language, and keep on experimenting!
This is what you, as an adult, need to re-learn. You don’t need to forget everything you
know, but rather you need to remember what it’s like to draw connections between concepts
in a natural way, through gradual, continuous exposure.
Let’s talk about life circumstances
One more place where children have a natural advantage over adults is in their life circumstances.
Children lead vastly different lives than adults do. Children (particularly those not
yet in school) have few responsibilities, and thus are free to spend the vast majority
of time playing, experimenting, and simply absorbing as much information they can about
the world around them.
In terms of language, they don’t even have a choice; they have to learn the language
they are exposed to by their parents and family members—it’s the only way they can survive,
communicate, and have their needs met.
Adults, on the other hand, have what children do not—responsibilities and choice.
We as adults have dozens and dozens of things we have to attend to each day: our jobs, our
families, our health, and much much more. We don’t have all of our needs met almost
automatically, as children do. We have to fend for ourselves, and in most cases, that
means spending a lot of our time doing things just to keep our lives in order.
With much of our time dedicated to our responsibilities, there’s embarrassingly little time left
for non-essential things, like language learning. And that’s normal even if you consider language
learning a priority. The other issue that separates adults and
children is choice.
As an adult, you most likely don’t have an urgent, life-or-death need to learn your
target language. You already have a language you can use to live your life just fine, so
learning a new one isn’t essential.
And that goes even for people who live abroad, in countries where their target language is
spoken. We all know stories of expats who only ever learn a few phrases in their target
language, even if they’ve lived abroad for decades.
Put simply, adults have the choice to learn only as much language as they want or need,
while a child (in most cases) does not. So children are naturally compelled to learn
more effectively.
One last benefit that children have over adults is time.
Have you ever seen official estimates of how many hours of learning it takes to learn a
language to fluency?
For example, it is said by some institutions that it takes about 500 hours of active learning
for an English speaker to become fluent in Spanish, and about 2200 hours for that same
English speaker to learn Japanese to fluency.
That may seem like an awful amount of time to you and me, who probably don’t have more
than an hour per day to dedicate to language learning.
Let’s do the math:
Spanish: 500 hours / 1 hour per day = 500 days (or 1.37 years to reach fluency)
Japanese: 2200 hours/1 hour per day = 2200 days (or 6.02 years to reach fluency)
That’s a long time, especially if we’re learning a language like Japanese. Do you
know many adults who have the discipline to stick to something for an hour a day for six
years, especially if they have a choice not to?
Now let’s look at the situation for the average child.
When a child is learning their mother tongue, they are immersed in it practically every
moment of their waking lives. On average, children sleep around 8 hours every day, meaning
they get to spend 16 hours totally immersed in their language.
Let’s say this immersion begins the moment they are born, and continues all the way until
they turn 18.
16 hours per day x 365 days per year x 18 years
That’s 105,120 hours of total language immersion by the time you reach adulthood!
That number of immersion hours is absolutely enormous when compared to the number of hours
that are necessary to actually reach fluency in a language, as I described earlier. Children
spend so much time with their native language, that they can reach fluency in a small fraction
of the time that adults need.
Okay, so we’ve covered all of the factors that give children a huge advantage over adults
when it comes to language learning.
Knowing all this, is it possible to imagine a scenario where an adult learns a language
like a child does?
I think so. Allow me to illustrate with a brief story:
A short time ago, I was in Krakow, Poland, working on a video for the famed Easy Polish
channel on Youtube.
Specifically, I worked with Justyna and Patrycja, the two girls who comprise the Easy Polish
team.
While together, we spent the whole day working and filming, though we did have the occasional
moment to eat meals and relax. The whole time, we spoke nothing but Polish with one another.
We discussed our lives, or work, and a wide variety of other topics.
As I practiced my Polish, I observed how Justyna and Patrycja interacted and used their language
with one another, and how they did the same with me. From seeing these interactions, I
learned a great deal of new things about the Polish language and how it is used. Justyna
and Patrycja were also kind enough to correct my Polish, when necessary.
All in all, this was an amazing linguistic experience. For that entire day, I was completely
immersed in the Polish language and culture. I used it with people, heard it spoken around
me, and saw how people used it with one another.
And this, in a nutshell, is the kind of experience children get to live. Not just for one day,
but for nearly every day of their lives.
If an adult could live an experience like the one I had in Krakow, but do it continuously
for years on end—all while maintaining an open mind—then I am sure they could reach
a native-like level, eventually.
I truly believe that you can acquire native-like skills in any language, at any age.
The older you start, the more challenging this becomes; however, if you are determined,
the challenge will never become too great.
Science supports this; while It was once thought that after the age of 10 it is impossible
to learn a language to native-like fluency, studies have now shown that native-like fluency
can be achieved even much later, after the age of 20.
This is what I’ve discovered in my own life. There are many adults who have reached fluency
in languages that they started learning long after childhood. The important thing is that
these people made conscious choices to overcome the internal and external limitations that
adult learning so often saddles us with.
The truth is that human beings best acquire language simplicity through a positive environment,
no matter their age. If you can develop a solid grasp of a language, you can use this
to your advantage to greatly accelerate your learning—especially if you move to a foreign
country and create an environment that mimics many of the advantageous conditions that child
learners often find themselves in.
So, no matter how old you are by the time you are watching this video, no matter what
your language experience is, you can learn any language if you want to. Your mind is
a powerful tool, and you are infinitely capable of using it to learn foreign languages and
change your life, just as I have.
Now, what about you?
Have you reached a high level in a 2nd language after the age of 18?
If you have, then leave a comment below sharing your story. I can’t wait to read all about
it.
As always, thanks for watching, and see you in the next video!