Age No Barrier to Bilingualism

Online, September 23, 2011 (Newswire.com) - In the latest issue of Language Magazine, Clay Williams debunks the theory that only children can achieve true fluency in a second language.

Using the example of spies whose very lives depend upon their accent, Dr. Williams, a professor of English at Akita International University in Japan, argues that necessity and desire are more important determining factors than age in the pursuit of language perfection.

Language Magazine's editor, Daniel Ward, welcomed the report, "I've never agreed with the theory of a 'critical period' during which you must start learning a language in order to become fluent. I've encountered about as many exceptions to this rule as I have people who use it as an excuse not to learn another language. One of my favorite examples is a gentleman from the former Czechoslovakia who learned English fluently from scratch when he arrived in California in his mid-forties. After he lost his wife in his nineties, he picked up Spanish so he could really communicate with his care-giver."

The article supports a recent study which found that it may not be easier for young children to learn new languages due to their brain elasticity or because they use procedural, or implicit, memory to learn - without giving it conscious thought.

Surprisingly, the study, based on an experiment at Israel's University of Haifa, showed that adults were better than children at acquiring a new language skill.

The idea that young children pick up languages much better than adults may be the result of attitudes to young children and adults rather than differences in the brain.

"If adults make a mistake we don't correct them because we don't want to insult them," says Sara Ferman of Tel Aviv University, Israel.

"Of course, it's still best to encourage children to start learning another language as early as possible to make the most of the young brain's plasticity," warns Ward, "but now, nobody can use age as an excuse for being monolingual."

To read the full article, visit www.languagemagazine.com/online/

Published monthly in Los Angeles, the award-winning Language Magazine is the world's most widely circulated publication devoted to the acquisition of language. For more, visit www.languagemagazine.com