Like, we have a frame of reference (first language), so why is it so hard to learn another language after that?
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There’s a concept called neural plasticity. It essentially means how fast our brains can form new pathways and this effects how fast we learn. Your brain is never as flexible as it is the first few years of your life.
So, you very quickly pick up languages as a young child because of that. Coupled with constant immersion in the language.
It’s part of why parents are encouraged to teach young children more than one language if they’re a multi lingual household. As they’ll pick up and retain it the fastest then.
Additionally, neural plasticity also affects how quickly people can overcome trauma. And it’s why things like psilocybin (magic mushrooms) are being tested for treating PTSD. Since it increases neural plasticity and cuts down the time it takes therapy to help people struggling.
If you go full immersion route, with a few basic tools and instructions you can learn to functionally speak another language within two years.
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
Babies are language learning machines. If a baby is exposed to two languages equally, they will learn both languages equally and be bilingual.
So you were able to read books and everything in your first year?
Pretty much half of these comments are just wildly wrong or speculative.
The basic reason is that our brains are pretty lazy. If you already know a word for something, it is increasingly hard to convince it to learn another one. As the association between the words and concept becomes stronger, the difficulty of picking up new language for that concept increases. Repetition is pretty much the only way to learn, but the increased adversity to repeating makes it harder and harder to learn.
I give you a cookie every time you say “please” for a year. Then, the next year I tell you that I will give you a cookie every time you say “por favor”. I will still give you a cookie if you say “please”, but will also if you say “por favor”. You have very little incentive for saying one over the other, so why bother with the new one?
It’s actually easier in terms of time and effort to learn a 2nd language as an adult than it is as a child. It’s just harder to dedicate the time and effort as an adult on language learning.
CEFR guidelines estimate that for an adult that is literate in a native language that uses a Roman alphabet, they would need 100-150 hours of guided instruction to reach an A1 level (can give basic personal information and handle rehearsed situations for specific needs with assistance), and additional 100-150 hours to reach an A2 level ( ), 100-200 hours to go to B1 () and 150-200 to get to B2 (proficient user that can communicate in most situations independently, with some grammar mistakes). So yeah, you’re only 500 hours of guided instruction away from being fluent in a foreign language. You could do that by studying 5 hours per week for 2 years.
The premise of the question is basically not true. Kids don’t learn a language in one year. It takes many years. They know two-word sentences in one year, more complex ones in the following years, and their language skills typically improve when they start kindergarten, where they spend multiple hours a days doing constant interactive exercise with their language.
Adults would learn a language equally well in that condition.
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