how can babies/toddlers learn virtually any language on earth from easy ones such as spanish or english to hardcores like chinese or arab? Why is it so difficult when you are an adult?
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I was a certified ESL teacher and took training on language learning. I also became fluent in conversational Korean.
Children actual learn a native language over a long period of time, from birth until you graduate high school (at least) you are developing your speaking, listening, writing etc. Let’s call that 18 years. The early years are devoted to learning sounds, then words, then grammar, sentences etc. Along with this are concepts eg. Electricity, Sex, Religion where some words have very complex meanings. And children are doing all this in an immersion environment.
How quickly and well a child can learn a foreign language is related to their mastery of their native language ie. A six year old isn’t going to speak a second language better than their native language. Many young children who grow up learning two languages at once experience difficulty confusing the two in speech.
Adults can actually learn a second language *very* quickly. They already intuitvely understand words, sentences, grammar etc. They have all the complex meanings and just need to know the new word. What makes learning a new language seem hard is mostly lack the time and not living in the environment where you’re using it daily.
For US Foreign Service employees (diplomats) even the languages considered “Super hard languages” to learn eg. Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean take just 88 weeks, or 21 months to achieve Professional Working Proficiency. So under 2 years of intense study to live *and work* in a foreign language. I’d like to see any child accomplish that in under 2 years.
tl;dr Adults can actually master a language faster than children given the time and training.
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