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The linguistic genius of adults: Research confirms we’re better learners than kids!

| 94 comments | Category: learning languages

I wrote in great detail before about why adults are much better language learners than kids, but now linguists are starting to chime in!

There is a stupid rumour going around that you can’t learn a language after a certain age (was it 6, or 12, or 14? I forget where the drunk blind man threw the dart that we have been basing this on) and considering I myself started properly at age 21, and how many people have been sharing their own success stories with me (if you have one, make sure to share it with all of us in the Fi3M forum’s success stories section – the best ones will get showcased on the blog!) I hope to have the ammunition to destroy this pointless demotivator.

The most discouraging TED talk ever

I’ve had some frustration with some linguists in the past when they make remarks that they can’t back up with relevant research, which serve no purpose but to discourage learners. But when they get taken seriously by the public, then I have to take a stand against it.

Among the worst examples include an otherwise interesting TED talk about The Linguistic genius of babies – in it she shows us a bullshit graph about the “critical period” for learning a language where all hope is lost from age 17. She drives it home with the comment “no scientists dispute this curve”. Really now?

She also claims that age ONE is where we can can no longer distinguish foreign sounds any more; “You and I can’t do that… we can discriminate the sounds of our own language, but not those of foreign languages”. This is just ridiculous. After some focused training, and sometimes even just a few seconds of paying attention, and you’ll hear it. In some cases, it’s harder and takes a wee bit more time, but it’s definitely not impossible.

She doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about because she actually researches babies.

This stuff really pisses me off as the “research” tests in a context and environment that children are bound to win on anyway (such as traditional classroom learning) and doesn’t test in areas that adults would be better at. As far as I’m concerned this is totally irrelevant research, as well as being unhelpful. I can’t imagine how many people were on the fence, but saw a video like this or read some paper where kids came out on top… in classroom learning, and decided from that to give up, even though they have many many advantages the kids don’t.

Seriously TED, you need to get me to speak up on one of your stages so I can undo the damage of this previous talker, as well as destroy people’s own misconceptions. Millions of adults around the world learn languages to excellent levels fine all the time. Any sloppy research that comes up on this is arguing against an army of people that disprove it.

Linguists who are working for the greater good

Fortunately this is not the case for all linguists, and now popular research is backing up what I’ve been saying all along!

I was just on Google plus, and my friend Joop shared this link with me so I thought I had to get it on the blog:

Age no excuse for failing to learn a new language – New Scientist

Researchers realised that there are crucial differences in how adults vs children learn and tried to demonstrate it in this research. When they did, surprise surprise, adults come out on top. Once again, for more specifics about how I think this works on a broader scale – read my post about how you are not too old to learn a language.

Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments!

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But that’s not you, so don’t worry! Can’t wait to see what you have to write… don’t be shy!! :)

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  • Jeff Winchell

    Hey Benny,
    I found this summary (http://www.zompist.com/whylang.html) of why typical kids learn languages easier than typical adults, which doesn’t get into FMRI research about the brains of kids under 5:

    “Innate abilities aside, children have a number of powerful
    advantages:

    1) They can devote almost their full time to it. Adults consider half an hour’s study
    a day to be onerous.2) Their motivation is intense. Adults rarely have to spend much of their time in the
    company of people they need to talk to but can’t; children can get very little of
    what they want without learning language(s).3) Their peers are nastier. Embarrassment is a prime motivating factor for human
    beings (I owe this insight to Marvin Minsky’s The Society of Mind, but it was most memorably
    expressed by David Berlinski (in Black Mischief, p. 129), who noted that of all emotions, from rage to
    depression to first love, only embarrassment can recur, decades later, with its full
    original intensity). Dealing with a French waiter is nothing compared with the
    vicious reception in store for a child who speaks funny.”
    So maybe you can use this to turn the subject on its head and show adults, who want to learn other languages, why they too can learn as easy as kids. Your own adventures are examples of the first two points. I realize that you don’t like to put yourself in situations like number 3, but living in a foreign country, I find that even as an adult, I get #3 from time to time. Particularly at work. I don’t like it, but I suppose it is good for me.

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