How does it only take a year or so to speak/understand our first language but it’s so much harder to acquire another language?

Question

Like, we have a frame of reference (first language), so why is it so hard to learn another language after that?

In: Other

Answer 1

You go through a developmental stage when you are young and learning your first language where you are very open to learning the connection between sounds and meaning. as we get older this part of the brain loses some plasticity and it because harder to learn more but by no means impossible