Why Can't Adults Learn Languages Like Children?

Kids learn languages really easily, don't they? There's this thing in your brain that just works it out -- but it switches off when you're an adult. Right? Well, maybe. But it's not that simple.

[If_Only_I_Knew_Why]

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.

[sporkafife]

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!

[awddfg]

*_I'm fluent in several languages, american, new zealander, australian, english, canadian, and british_*

Several of these I hate

[laxy]

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

[KarlRock]

Thank you, Tom. Learning languages just takes hard work

[maxthemax]

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.

[cybr]

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.

[henrysun]

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?”

[NithinJune]

Lesson: Tom Scott really wants to learn french

[antopolskiy]

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.

[andersaxmark]

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

[cemadiby]

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

[lrdalucardart]

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.

[TheFailOrNot]

I am a 17 year old non native English speaker. I'm close to fluent, I'd say, and contrary to popular belief I have never learned anything but the basics of understanding a simple sentence in school. Starting in third grade, when I was 8, up until the age of around 12 my English was terrible. I didn't quite understand it and learning vocabulary from a book seemed very much pointless to me. That was when I started to get in touch with the Internet a little more, especially YouTube. I gradually, for lack of a better word, transferred from content in my native language, German, to the more wide spread content in English. After only a year of listening to people on the Internet I had picked up proper grammar, a wide vocabulary and a more fluent style of speaking. Fast forward another two years and I had completely lost the internal translation most people default to when learning a new language.
And this is something I tell everybody who asks me about my English skills. Forget about learning with books and exercises constructed for questioning your skills in a very narrow part of the language. Instead focus on learning the language like a child would; listen to native speakers and gradually get rid of translating words you don't know because you didn't know them in your native language to begin with. Learn what they mean not what they translate to.
Nowadays my only struggle is that I am periodically forgetting words which I then can't find in neither English nor German.

[michoislost]

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!

[bambon]

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.

[TheParadiseParadox]

A lot of it is about "skin in the game". When you're a child, you have a strong desire to understand and be understood. As an adult, today, even when you're in a foreign country, you don't necessarily need to know the foreign language to communicate... especially if you speak English. The stakes just aren't that high.

If you went to a foreign country and shut off your social media, stopped calling friends at home and stopped communicating in your native language, you'd be more likely to pick up the native language... because you want to communicate.

It's also about the fact that many people are very bad listeners. They've never been taught how to listen, many people are unaware that listening is even a skill, and they're not willing to expand their preconception of what is worth listening to.

[sable]

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.

[Nojah_Kruskie]

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.

[harshbarj]

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.