Learning a foreign language is a time taking process. It requires determination, time, and skill to grasp the language. Human beings learn something new at every phase of their life but have you ever wondered; what is the best age to learn a foreign language?  It is a known fact that children learn a new language faster than adults do.

Different stages of life have different advantages in the case of language learning. As a baby, human beings have a better listening capacity for different sounds. Toddlers can easily pick native accents with superb speed. Adults have a long attention span and possess crucial skills such as literacy that help to expand vocabulary. Various other factors such as teaching methods, social circumstances, and even friendship and love also affect the language learning process. We cannot say that everything goes down with age because the determination to learn some new skills plays a vital role in this regard. Many people have learned a foreign language at an older age. The things that matter are confidence and determination.

Age and Language Learning

According to a new study in the United States, there is a critical period in the lifespan of a human being, after which learning any new skill is harder. The study suggests that children below ten years of age become proficient in a new language more easily. Young people (under 18 years of age) also master the grammar of a new language easily, but beyond this point, things get more challenging.

 Research Details

Research has been carried out to know the grammatical ability in which 670,000 people participated. People of different age groups and nationalities participated in a quiz where they have to determine whether the given sentence was correct grammatically or not. About 246,000 of the participants were English speaking, and the left was multi or bilingual. Excluding English, the most common native language was Turkish, Finnish, German, Hungarian, and Russian.

The majority age group of 20-30 had completed the quiz. The oldest participant was in the 70s, and the youngest was ten years old.  After analyzing, the scientists revealed that childhood is best for grammar learning, and it persists up to the teenage.  However, this does not mean that adulthood is not suitable for learning a new language. The results show that people can still learn the language quickly after 18 years of age but may not be proficient enough like native speakers.

Learn Any New Language before Turning 18

This research has identified only the age criteria for effective learning the new language, and further research is required to understand why language learning ability appears to drop after a certain age. 

This might be possible due to biological change or something cultural or social matter. This might be because after 18 young people have to leave home or work full-time or can become university students as per Professor Josh Tenenbaum, an MIT professor and co-author of the study. This can affect the language-learning rate.

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