Why Can't Adults Learn Languages Like Children?

Me learning English... At school: 1% social online : 99%

Lesson: Tom Scott really wants to learn french

I'm fluent in several languages, american, new zealander, australian, english, canadian, and british Several of these I hate

As a Greek native speaker I struggled with distinguishing words like full and fool, ship and sheep, cut and cat because there are fewer vowel sounds in Greek and my brain had already categorized those sounds as one.

I learned English through growing up with YouTube... almost entirely stopped watching content in my native language when I was about 13. Schools almost never taught me any English, all hail YouTube and online Movies/TV Shows.

Slightly unrelated to the topic at hand, but... I had an awesome French teacher that could speak both French and English fluently and actively switch between the two any time he wanted. Well, one day he had to get his wisdom teeth removed and he was worried about saying embarrassing things as he woke up from the surgery, so before he was sedated he began to think in French. It worked! He woke up speaking French and the surgeon was a little freaked out as a patient who he only knew could speak English just woke up from HIS surgery speaking French.

The only established advantage that children have in decades of research is: accent. Adults are actually better at grammar

Me as child: No interest in learning Me as an adult: No brain for learning

At university, I had an Italian friend who had enough of an understanding of English to hold a meaningful conversation, but she told me she was always doing a "conscious translation" in her head, but by the end of 3 years speaking English, she said that her understanding of English was fundamentally different, and now she was intrinsically understanding the language instead of running it through a translator in her head. Kind of crazy!

Main difference between Children and Adutls is... as as kid you learn cause you need it, meanwhile as an adult, you learn it because you want to. This makes a huge difference.

I learned Mandarin Chinese very quickly as a child, but over time I forgot almost all of it. It’s actually crazy when I look back at my old writing and speaking and wonder: “how did I even know that?”

FUN FACT: I was born and raised in Germany and grew up hearing German and Hungarian from my parents. Since I was about 10 years old (I'm 17 now) I've spent so much time online watching videos/films, listening to music and communicating in video games in English that it's become my main language to think in. Of course I don't always have to translate in my head when I speak in German or Hungarian but when I'm alone I've completely stopped thinking in German.

The thing is, adults are rarely in a situation where they are FORCED to learn the language like kids are. When I started to work in a lab abroad and had to other ways of communicating, I picked up English from lower intermediate to fluent in a space of 3-4 months, and I was 22 at that, long past my language acquisition critical period. It was a hell of a stress, but it beats all the language courses out there: it didn't cost me a thing and I learned to speak close to a native level.

Thank you, Tom. Learning languages just takes hard work

i learned English as a dumb kid watching cartoons with subtitles online and honestly it took me about 4-5 years to actually start integrating myself into the English-speaking internet. It takes time! so don't get demotivated if you're not learning fast enough because trust me, you are. The thing about learning another language is the more you know the faster and easier it is to learn. Don't give up!

I'd argue that's it's not actually "easy" for children to learn languages. Much like it's not actually easer for children to pick up new skills. It's all a matter of free time. Something children tend to have plenty of.

I am a 13-year-old german, lived my whole life in Germany, but i think in English very often. I often even forget the german word for something.

That old Duolingo logo looked creepy as hell.

I’m surprised that there has never been a study to replicate a child’s experience with language and culture in an adult. If there was someone who has no familiarity with a certain language and they went to live in that country for let’s say 4 years with two native speakers of that language to help the subject out with day to day stuff while only speaking in their native language, that would be an accurate portrayal of a child’s experience and give them a chance to pick up on language and social norms. If something like this was done, I’m sure it would answer a lot of questions we have about this topic.

I low key remember like 10 years ago I was rejected from Spanish class for being too “old” I was 6