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Too Old To Learn a New Language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| dangre37 Newbie United States Joined 5389 days ago 12 posts - 16 votes Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 38 26 February 2010 at 4:29am | IP Logged |
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I wonder whether my mind is up to the challenge of learning a speak another language fluently at my age: I will be sixty in another week. What do others think? I consider myself quite intelligent, and am in good health, but my mind is not what it was even ten years ago. I would like to believe that one is never too old to learn, but clearly learning a new language can be a daunting task.
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| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5651 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes  Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 38 26 February 2010 at 4:49am | IP Logged |
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I'm almost as old as you are and I've learned to read classical Persian quite well in the last 4 1/2 years, have improved my German, and am really enjoying reading Arabic as well, though I've only been at that for six months. It should be great for your mental faculties. Don't worry about how far or how fast you go, just get moving and enjoy it!
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| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 38 26 February 2010 at 5:25am | IP Logged |
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You might not be able to learn with a native accent, but you will be able to learn a language fine, as long as you're dedicated and stick with it.
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| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5677 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 4 of 38 26 February 2010 at 6:12am | IP Logged |
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Physiologically, learning a language is well within your grasp.
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| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6075 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 5 of 38 26 February 2010 at 10:48am | IP Logged |
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I am reminded of Kato Lomb, an exceptional polyglot who mastered up to sixteen languages and worked as a simultaneous interpreter. She wrote the book "Polyglot - how I learn languages" and was said to still be successfully learning languages in her 80s and 90s.
Remember to consider an advantage the extra time that is often available to older learners, though I myself would never consider your age to be "old". Like the other posters have said, the important thing is to enjoy the process and keep moving along at your own pace. "Perspective on the soul and essence of language is a privilege of old age" 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kinan Diglot Senior Member Syrian Arab Republic Joined 5566 days ago 234 posts - 279 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, English Studies: Russian, Spanish | Message 6 of 38 26 February 2010 at 11:47am | IP Logged |
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Age is really not a factor, you feel your mind is slow cuz you are not training it daily.
I love to play chess and i play short games everyday and it helps keeping my mind sharp, so don't be afraid to learn new languages, you will find it hard at the beginning but you will get used to it later, think of all the great and genius professors that are still sharp minded even in their 80s. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 7 of 38 26 February 2010 at 12:30pm | IP Logged |
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Exercising your brain is harder for an initial period when you haven't done it for a
while, but there is no conclusive evidence for it actually being harder (never mind impossible) to learn something new just because you're older. For example, a few years ago my mother decided to start working again after more than 20 years of being a house wife. She couldn't go back to her original job being a dentist's assistant because youth is a very important selection criteria there. So she went to a trade school and did a three-year course to become a social worker for families. Most of her classmates were high school graduates. They initially had the advantage because their brains were still used to studying, but after a short time my mother was able to study just as well; in fact better because she had all this life experience to connect the dry study materials to. I have no doubt that you can succeed in learning any foreign language you want. However, it's important to have the same conviction yourself. If you're currently lacking in conviction, some of the most encouraging materials I've found are Michel Thomas, Synergy Spanish and Lingua Latina, or you could dedicate three months to Esperanto to really know what success at language-learning feels like. By the way, exercising your brain has been shown to make it much less likely that you'll get Alzheimers... Edited by Sprachprofi on 26 February 2010 at 12:32pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| arkady Bilingual Diglot Groupie United States rightconditi Joined 5400 days ago 54 posts - 61 votes Speaks: English*, Russian* Studies: German | Message 8 of 38 26 February 2010 at 6:08pm | IP Logged |
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To expand slightly on Sprachprofi's excellent response, a Canadian study suggests that bilingual people develop Alzheimer's 4 years longer than monolingual folks.
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