Hola - soy David de MinuteEarth.
You’ve probably heard that an old dog can’t learn new tricks - and that’s mostly true.
While senior doggos can be better than puppies at solving some small puzzles - it seems like
there’s some barrier to them picking up totally new behaviors.
And the same is true for an old human - or an “adult” as I’m sometimes called.
While we’re better than little kids at learning to do specific tasks, we’re often worse
at mastering new complex skills - including languages.
In fact, compared to people who start learning a second language before age 10, people who
start after they hit double digits are way less likely to ever attain a native-like fluency.
You might think that’s because there’s something about young brains - as opposed
to old brains - that makes them more amenable to learning complicated new things.
But the real culprits may be two sociological barriers that come with adulting.
The first is that adults usually don’t invest as much in learning a new language as kids
do.
When a family immigrates to a country with a new language, the kids will almost certainly
need to use that language to learn stuff at school, to make friends, and to keep up with
pop culture.
The parents, though, won’t necessarily have to use the new language at their jobs, they’ll
often already have friends who speak their native language, and, well, adults usually
care more about the old pop culture of their youth.
And - importantly - when an adult wants to take a break from using a new language, they
usually can.
But kids often have to keep trying even when they don’t want to, which means they do
it more, which helps them gain fluency quicker.
The other barrier that adults have to overcome is that while adults are good at following
directions, which can often help us beat kids at specific tasks like applying a new verb
tense, we tend to see a new language as a huge set of rules to be followed.
And we’re so worried that we’ll “do mistakes” and “talks wrongly” that we
end up not using the new language very much while kids who are way less risk averse in
general use it a lot more.
And it turns out that the risky approach - simply letting loose and trying to communicate as
often as possible in as many situations as possible - mistakes and all - seems to be
the very best way to learn a new language.
There are a few other reasons why an adult might have trouble learning a new language,
but if they find reasons to be invested in the new language, use effective strategies,
and forgo worrying about mistakes, they can knock down these two big barriers and become
bilingual.
In fact, using these strategies, some adults have learned to fluently speak several extra
languages.
One of those hyperlinguists - Kató Lomb, started learning new languages after age 10
and kept learning more and more throughout her life - including a final language when
she was well into her 80s.
How’s that for breaking down barriers?
This video was sponsored by the University of Minnesota, where students, faculty and
staff across all fields of study are working to solve the Grand Challenges facing society.
One of these challenges is enhancing individual and community capacity for a changing world,
which includes figuring out how we can all communicate better with one another.
Professor Kate Paesani and her team at the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
are studying multilingualism and multiculturalism to improve foreign language teaching and learning,
and Professor Martha Bigelow of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction studies multilingual
educational policy, with a focus on immigrant and refugee youth.
Thanks University of Minnesota!