What makes those able to speak multiple languages different?

While there are some interesting tidbits in this article, its repetition of the undocumented false claim that age doesn’t matter when it comes to language learning does a disservice to many monolingual expats reading it.

Age not only matters, it’s crucial, and I defy anyone to provide a single example of a monolingual who achieved fluency in a second language when they didn’t begin trying to learn it until after around age 50. Sorry, it didn’t happen to Marco Rubio’s grandfather, and it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

There is a scientific explanation for this: Over time, brains extinguish the ability they once had to hear irrelevant sounds. This is adaptive, since it allows people to be better attuned to the sounds that are relevant in their environment. Problem is, when the ability to hear the sounds is extinguished, the ability to reproduce them does too, and with that language learning becomes a largely pencil-and-paper endeavor rather than one that allows speaking and listening skills. Since oldsters haven’t lost much of their pencil-and-paper abilities, they can master these (with a lot more work than youngsters who can also hear the language), but they can’t master the things that depend upon extinguished aural abilities.

This is also why the older the learner, the thicker the accent, but progressively the accent problem becomes a learning problem too.

Why then do older adults who already speak two or more languages find it easier to learn additional languages? Because their aural abilities are already broader than than monolinguals–their brains have extinguished fewer sound–and they have more to draw from. There is also some evidence that they have mastered some tricks of language learning that work for them and are able to transfer them to additional languages.

But don’t kid yourself, it’s not even easy for these folks, and after a certain age they have more difficulties too.

Science aside, it’s probably best to think of learning a language as analogous to learning to play a musical instrument. Next to nobody who doesn’t already play an instument can learn to play the violin well if they wait till age 20 or 25 to start, and anyone who waits till age 50 to start will never frankly be any good. Indeed, even those who as kids played the violin only to set it aside for careers and later decide to pick it up again at most end up performing in unpaid community orchestras. There is a window of opportunity to learn to play the violin really well, and that window rapidly closes with age.

The situation is a little different for those who already play another musical instrument and pick up the violin later in life. Odds are even in these situations the person needs to have experience playing a bowed string instrument, since simply the physical process of bowing isn’t easy to master as an adult, at least if they’re going to be any good at playing the violin. But at minimum, they have a major head start if they already play any other instrument, because the aural skills are already there and it’s mostly a matter of transferring those skills rather than learning them from scratch.

Anyway, those people who preach that age doesn’t matter when learning a foreign language might as well preach that age doesn’t matter when learning to play the violin. Well yeah, it doesn’t matter in the sense that with work everybody can learn something, but it matters in the sense of stimulating unrealistic expectations–and correspondingly making oldsters feel stupid when they don’t meet those expectations.

I have also looked and could not find any studies showing that older adults can learn a foreign language with anywhere near the ease or to anywhere near the fluency that younger people can. The so-called “study” this article links to to prove this isn’t even a study. It’s a language professor’s opinion. And when you look at the studies that have been done, you invariably find that they define “adult” learners as those aged 25 and above. Huh? 25 is a far distance from 50 when it comes to learning a language (or the violin). There just isn’t the research claimed to show that older monolingual adults can learn.

Who then is dispensing this inaccurate information? You guessed it, language professors and language schools. They want your tuition dollars.

Of course, it remains true that no matter the age, everybody can learn something. It’s also true, IMO, that monolingual English-speakers in Costa Rica should get their asses into Spanish classes and learn what they can. Every little bit helps, and I puke when these old monolingual gringos with nothing better to do than sit on barstools and play golf pay the tuition for the “girlfriends” to learn English but can’t be bothered to plunk their own asses into a Spanish class.

Even so, realism is in order. I am probably a graduate of more (well three) Spanish-language schools than anyone else in Costa Rica, and have watched with my own eyes how the older gringos struggle while the younger ones surpass us rapidly.

And yes, I said “us.” Sometimes I’m tempted to make photocopies of my advanced Spanish certificate from the University of Costa Rica (although I have them from other schools too) and carry them with me to hand out to the Spanish speakers who ever so condescendingly suggest that I might want to enroll in a Spanish class to learn the language. Actually, I have, even have the certificates. Wanna copy?

Plus, I’m even “immersed” in the language. So much for that method.

And to my Tico friends who speak English, I just ask them how old they were when they started learning the language. Everyone started in childhood, although those that master it usually gave it an extra push during their 20s. Not one started at age 30 or older–and forget age 50.

I also tell my Tico friends inclined to criticize me to get back to me after they speak Mandarin. I mean, let them try to learn a foreign language as adults and see how easy it is.

This assumption that all you need to do is buckle down and try is just wrong, but nobody seems to know this. This ignorance quickly becomes a prejudice against oldsters.

Of course, buckling down and trying is important too, but expectations (and criticisms) need to be more realistic too. It’s a bit like learning the play the violin in late life. Learning is possible, just don’t expect to get a job with the Cleveland Symphony and be happy if you can have some fun playing in a suburban Cleveland community orchestra.