If you’ve ever tried to learn a foreign language after high school, you probably found it a lot harder than when you were younger.
Good news — it’s not just you. Pretty much everyone has a hard time learning a new language when they’re older. Why do our brains have so much trouble grasping these new patterns? Why do our tongues suddenly trip over unfamiliar pronunciations? Let’s look at what happens to our brains as we age that makes it so challenging to learn a foreign language.
Science Says...
It’s no secret that brain function changes over time. But is there evidence to say people can’t learn a language, or that they're worse at it after a certain age? No.
It turns out that what makes it more difficult isn’t decreasing brain function at all. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. As adults, our knowledge base is so different that it affects the ability to learn anything, not just languages.
Learning too much or too intensely may also play a role in why adults find it so hard to pick up a new language. As a baby and young child, our brain is almost empty of real-world knowledge. But as people age, we learn skills like math, reading, remembering dates, and trying to figure out how taxes work. Is there any surprise there’s no room left for Japanese or Arabic?
There’s still hope! In Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, the parts of the brain responsible for processing language, there is little difference in function from youth to adulthood — barring injuries or disorders. The only big differences occur in the elderly, where function slows, but still doesn’t make it impossible to learn new languages.
Are Adults Too Smart?
The concept of necessity explains why even adults learn language faster with immersion. Studying a language in college for the first time is a lot less effective than moving to a country where people primarily speak that language. If you NEED to learn that language to complete your basic daily tasks, you’re going to learn quickly.
In a linguistic study, adults learned the general categories of a new language better when exposed casually, versus the group who deliberately studied in a formal environment. The group who exerted more effort toward studying could pick up vocabulary words better than grammar and general categories.
Adults also have one more thing most children don’t — self-consciousness. Listen to a toddler just beginning to form sentences — How often did they mess up the words?
Kids aren’t afraid to get it wrong. You probably are. Plus, you’re not listening to native speakers talk all day. If kids didn’t have that advantage, they wouldn’t learn language so fast either.
If you’re slower at picking up a foreign language now than you were as a kid, don’t beat yourself up over it. You’re not alone. All you need is a little space in your brain and the confidence of a toddler.