Too old?

Some adults give up the idea of learning a language. What they sometimes say is that the age to do so is now long gone. Lots of people truly believe that learning a new language is something you do during childhood or adolescence. But of course this is not true.

Let's consider some aspects. I'll try  to be straight forward and avoid technicalities. Firstly, it is true that in order to be considered bilingual, that is, perfect and virtually same commands of two languages, one should be in touch with both languages from a very early stage in life. That is what some experts suggest.

A lot of people who are not bilingual can speak two languages. The difference is that these people have one first language, not two as with bilinguals. The other languages are their second, third,... ones. They can be fluent in several languages, but native in only one.

There is some controversy to what happens to adults who move to other countries and live a much longer period of their lives using a language different than their native ones. Can a native language change with time? Perhaps, But this is not the direction we'll be taking for now.

There is a kind of consensus that during a specific period of someone's life, the brain is more effective in storing new information and learning things. I'm not entirely sure about the specific ages, but it's something between childhood and and pre-adolescence. However, this does not mean that an adult cannot learn something new (languages included). In fact, adults have several advantages over the young and fresh.

For starters, adults usually come to classes because the want to, and not because their mums ordered them to. Then the big ones have more discipline. They study when they have to. On top of that, grown-ups have a longer attention span, which means that a teacher can push a bit further when analysing language, for example. At this stage of the lesson, the ceiling normally attracts  the young ones' eyes.

So saying that you'll never learn English or any other language is not true. Nor is it so that you'll spend twice as much time to get there. It's really up to you.