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

That’s not necessarily true if you live in a multilingual environment. You can definitely pick up more than one language easily if you are regularly exposed to and compelled to regularly speak those languages from an early age. For example people in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Africa and parts of Europe like the Netherlands and Nordics tend to speak at least two languages because their societies places a premium on speaking more than one language.