It takes years before a young toddler can start to have a conversation in their native language. So why do we all believe the myth that only kids can learn languages?
In many ways, being an older language learner has advantages that young people do not have. It really is never too late to start learning a language. Having taught an 86 year old woman to successfully learn English, I know this is very true.
So here are the advantages of being an older person learning languages:
1. You will have better focus because you are more likely to have a clear goal in your mind.
2. Because you have a clear goal in your mind, you will be more determined.
3. More likely to have intrinsic motivation to succeed.
3. You will have more money to pay for excellent study materials.
4. You will have more money to pay for a tutor for 1-on-1 lessons.
5. You will have more money to pay for classes.
6. Can interact much better with your language tutors.
7. You will have more money to travel to a country where your language is spoken.
8. You will have more stamina for studying for long periods of time.
9. Less likely to feel ashamed when you make mistakes.
10. Unlike young people, older people are more likely to study outside of class. The more hours you put into your language, the more you will get out of it.
11. Less likely to feel stressed out over passing tests.
12. Likely to know the types of study methods that work the best for you.
I’m going to be balanced in this summary and give the disadvantages of being a mature language learner too.
1. Less time to travel.
2. Less time to attend classes and for study in general.
3. This one is the most frustrating for adult learners. Once your physical palate is set, it is really difficult to learn a language so that you sound like a native. However, there’s nothing wrong with speaking a language with an accent. Even native speakers of a language have different accents too!
4. Class materials can be aimed at young people rather than older people which can be tiresome.
5. Less likely to be in an educational environment and some people need this to remain motivated.
6. If you haven’t kept your mind active over the years, you can be more prone to forgetting things at first.
7. It’s harder to find language partners of your age group.
8. Because learning languages at school is largely unsuccessful, many adults then believe they are incapable of learning languages. This isn’t true. Forget any classes of languages you ever had at school!
As an adult, you have many advantages to be a successful language learner. So never give up your language learning dreams!
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