Brain elasticity obviously helps, but there is no substitute for motivation.
Common thing that I hear is that young children (0-7) learn language a lot faster than older people.
This is stupid, because while, yes, a youngster's brain is better equipped to pick up a language, a 7 yr old is not capable of studying a language intentionally.
Sure, a 6 yr old can pick up a language in a hurry, compared to an adult, IF he is in a immersion environment. Even then, even a native speaker of a language at 6 yrs old doesn't not have anywhere near the sophistication of a fluent adult speaker of the same language.
You are still developing your vocabulary through high school and possibly into university. My mom learned a new word at age 51 that she had never learned before in her life.
If an adult buckles down for five years and studies intentionally, he can be completely fluent in Chinese at the same level that any native speaker of Chinese would be proud of at 15, which given his immaturity takes him longer to develop.
So, I'd rather be a motivated adult studying something new than a lazy kid that only learns what his mind naturally picks up in daily life.
At 30+ yrs old, you are at a disadvantage, but that doesn't mean you can't do stuff any more. My mom significantly improved her Dutch between 30-40. At 25, no one would have thought of her as a fluent speaker. She'd heard it a lot from age 0-3, but couldn't speak Dutch at all when she was 10. She studied for two years in college, but her skills didn't really pickup until she was in her 30's and got motivated and started reading Dutch books from the library with the book in one hand and a Dutch-English dictionary in the other.
At 45, people who had recently immigrated to Canada from the Netherlands started asking when she immigrated. They spoke Dutch with her and concluded that she was a native speaker, based on her fluency.
Now, my mom is really smart, but the moral of the story is that despite the advantages of your brain state when you are older, there is nothing more powerful than being motivated and getting down to business learning something.
Also, being in the habit of learning helps.
I've spent the last 8 yrs of my life going in and out of college and after I've been away from school for a year or more, it's really hard to do it again. Even writing a one page essay is really tough.
But once I get back into the mental state of being a student, I can do it again.
So, if you want to learn things, do it as young as possible, but if you are 35, don't assume that your life is over.
Quote: (04-13-2013 05:55 PM)Roosh Wrote:
It's actually easier for me to learn things, because I already have so many connections and experiences that when I see a new Polish word, there is something already in my brain that I can anchor it to for a mnemonic.
How many hours a day are you studying the language? Are you also practicing it? Are you using spaced repetition? It's probably your learning technique, not your brain (unless you're letting it degrade by watching a lot of television). The brain is like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets. If you study a language only 30 minutes a day, of course it's going to be hard, no matter what age you are.