Is it possible to learn a new language as an adult?.



      
    One  of  the ‘myths’ or  obstacles  that  is  always  presented  as  a  barrier  to  learning  a  second  language  is  the  age  factor. There  are  those  who  claim  that  it’s  impossible  to  learn  a  second  language  as  an  adult. And  I  would  like  to  say  that  yes, it  is  very  possible  to  learn  a  second  language  as  an  adult. Actually, it  is  very  possible  to  learn  more  than  one  language  as  an  adult. Besides  my  personal  experience, let  us  look  at  it  from  a  different  perspective.

    I  have  met, and  I’m  sure  most  of  us  have  met  people  who  admit  that  they  were  exposed  to  a  foreign  language, mostly  in  an  academic  environment, but  that  they  never  developed  neither  fluency  nor  a  firm  grasp  of  the  language. Most  of  the  people  that  I  have  met, and  who  shared  their  experience  say  that  they  took  several  years/classes  of  a  certain  language  in  high  school  but  never  became  proficient  with  it. It  is  true  that  exposure  to  a  language  at  an  early  age  offers  a  distinct  advantage  but  it  doesn’t  mean  that  anyone  who  never  received  this  exposure  is  doomed  for  life. Look  at  it  this  way, most  high  school  students  are  not  adults, so  if  all  it  took  to  master  a  language  was  exposure  at  an  early  age, then  anyone  who  came  into  contact  with  a  foreign  language  in  high  school  should  have  been  able  to  become  proficient. What  this  means  is  that  it  is  never  too  late  to  learn  a  second  language. Even  for  those  people  who  may  have  had  several  years  of  exposure  to  a  language  in  high  school  but  did  not  develop  proficiency, you  can  still  pick  up  from  where  you  left  off  in  high  school. In  the  following  days/posts, I  will  be  discussing  some  tools  that  I  found  to  be  very  useful  in  my  language  studies. Please, come  back  for  the  next  post  and  let  us  walk  this  journey  together.


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