It's Never Too Late

Ways to learn a language as an adult

Welcome, aspiring polyglot! Currently I am not working with a single person who does not have a 40+ hour per week time commitment to work. In fact, I have never worked with anyone who wasn’t working full time. Children may learn languages easier, but adults have advantages children do not. You have discipline, existing language scaffolding, motivation, the ability to study strategically and the knowledge of what does and does not work for you.

The MYTH of the critical period

It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that children have an easier time learning. The truth is that children simply spend more time learning; because they have more time to spend learning. Yes, their brains are able to absorb more, but the disadvantages they have offset the advantages almost completely. Yes, children acquire native accents more easily. That’s about it.

Adults learn grammar faster, can study strategically, and have life experience that makes vocabulary acquisition more meaningful. In fact, most adults understand their native language better, or at least they should, and that alone is a massive edge. People in the medical field as adults can accelerate their acquisition in any romance language far faster than a children thanks to the time and effort they put into medical school.

For most, the barrier they face is not their age, but rather their ego. If you have spent years of your life improving your craft or mastering a skill, the thought of going back to being a complete beginner is not exactly enticing. Let alone the idea of reducing your communication capacity to that of a four year old. The longer you put this off for, however, the more power the emotions have over you.

Most children have no concern for sounding or looking stupid. They have no context for which things do and do not merit embarrassment. This may be their single greatest advantage, even more so than the neuroplasticity inherent in young brains. That said, embarrassment is a language learning tool and one that you should be using irrespective of age.

Past failures do not predict future outcomes

If you “failed” Spanish in high school, that says nothing about your ability. Even if you passed, but feel that you failed because you do not speak Spanish, this has nothing to do with your ability. It is the method that failed you. The method, the goals, the environment, all of these things were fighting against your success rather than working to propel you forward.

Classrooms are designed for compliance and testing, not language acquisition; and the tests they give in foreign language classes tend to test memorization skills rather than linguistic skills. Especially if they are multiple choice tests. At the end of the day there is no “right” way to say anything. If you can’t think of two ways to say the same thing, that is an exercise worth beginning immediately.

Linguistic flexibility, that is the ability to find ways forward even if they are not technically perfect, is a crucial skill upon which every single bilingual on this planet depends. With strict choice based tests, you are robbed of the freedom, and opportunity, to learn to express yourself in new and creative ways. Any language acquisition focused on multiple choice tests is going to hurt more than help.

Fortunately, you are no longer beholden to these institutions or their methodology. You can choose your on materials. The content library no longer has to be filled with things that the teacher enjoys. If a strategy works for you, you get to choose to go all in and if one does not you can choose to stop it. This is one of your advantages as an adult learner.

The adult language learner advantages

The biggest advantages adults have as language learners is that you get to choose your own content. Forget everything else for a second, if you are trying to learn something and you dread the material you will never learn that thing. Now, imagine another scenario in which you look forward to studying because you are genuinely interested in the material? That is how it should be.

One of my students really loves surfing, so he watches surfing videos in Spanish. Another is a woodworker, he watches and deepens his knowledge of the craft, in Spanish. A third is a devout Catholic, so her speech practice is daily prayers. Children have language built into their lives. Adults get to choose how language is built into their lives.

Furthermore, you get to pace yourself. Counterintuitively, this often means moving at a more rapid pace than you experienced as a child in public schools. Part of the thing that turns adults off of learning a new language is the belief that it is going to take years and years of intensive study; and why would they believe anything different? After all, that is the proposition of high schools and universities nationwide.

But you get to meet yourself at your level. For example, in my classes we spend the first 6 weeks learning 6 verb tenses. As someone who took Spanish in high school and college for half a decade, I can’t imagine a standardized program accepting this pace, because there is no guarantee that the student would pass a multiple choice exam, even if they can better express themselves verbally.

Finally, your existing knowledge will pay you dividends as you dive into a new language. Do you know what “paprika” is? That’s right! Dried, pulverized red bell pepper. Do you know what the word for pepper in German is? That’s right! Paprika. Ever had lasagna al forno? Guess what! You know how to say “oven” in Italian. And the more life you live the more of these you have at your fingertips.

Conclusion

I work with adult language learners every single week. None of them are working fewer than 40 hours per week. Most of them have children. That is why I feel so confident in telling you, reader, that you can and should learn a new language this year. It does not have to be as difficult, nor take as long, as you were made to believe through the gross incompetency of the public system.

Now, saying that something is simple, that it is possible, does not mean it is easy. Solo learning is one of the most difficult feats because no one is there to make you do anything. You must rely on your own discipline, your own motivation, your own evaluation in order to succeed. It will be difficult, but you can do difficult things and be great. So start doing some difficult things and become great. I am rooting for your success.

If you work in healthcare, I’ve built Medical Spanish and French Handbooks with dozens of clinical patterns and vocabulary frameworks you won’t find anywhere else. Available to paid subscribers.

I also build custom courses for professionals. Doctors, nurses, engineers, and anyone who needs targeted language skills for their field. Every program is tailored to your specialty, your patient population, and your schedule. Learn more and get started.