Hi everyone. It is commonly accepted that learning a new language becomes harder with age, and that people in their teens are in the optimal position to acquire a new language.
As I’m going through Wanikani while having occasional hardships, I sometimes wonder about my age. I’m halfway into my thirties. Of course, all in life is relative, so I’m sure some users here won’t find me very old at all, but I do sometimes feel that things don’t stick in my brain as well as they used to. I really get the impression it takes me much longer to properly retain things than it used to.
I’m very curious what others think. Do you feel like your retention has deteriorated with age? Or do you still absorb information as easily as always?
That depends on what have you been doing until now. If you learned new things all your life, not necessarily a language, it can be the other way too. I feel like I remember things way better than in school, even though I am pushing towards 40. I have learned how to learn. It is important to experiment and figure out what works for you specifically. Maybe you remember through association with images, maybe with sounds, etc This is essentially “Know Thyself” applied in practice.
I second this. I’m in my mid-thirties and have definitely “learned how to learn” in that I research and apply lots of different techniques, and try to learn in such a way that the material has more context and will be more memorable. E.g. using mnemonics, example sentences, verb-object pairs, or active listening, rather than just trying to rote learn vocab. I reinforce and triangulate using many different sources and input methods. I look things up and check them constantly. I also just have more discipline and tenacity than when I was a teenager. I value the experience more, as I’m very conscious of how precious my time is and that, ultimately, I’ve chosen to do this!
On the flip side, learning has become a lot more difficult due to a lack of quality time for it. I have to weave it into my day. Being generally busy or mentally drained from work and life means that there are rarely “good” learning conditions and I just have to keep forcing it through each day.
Finally, Japanese is a hard language to learn for many. Especially for someone like me who had no real language learning experience until my mid-twenties. We should give ourselves a pat on the back!
Yes age is no joke, unfortunately.
I still remember the language I’ve been learning back in twenties almost as well as back then, and with practically no maintenance.
But Japanese that I’ve started only in thirties is deteriorating almost as fast as I’m learning it. It’s not only languages, you struggle to remember where you went for vacation 2 years ago and such.
I am quite a lot older than you and learning does become harder as you get older, but not really in your 30s, in fact you’re in a better position to learn effectively that you were when you were a teenager. What most people have less of as they get older is free time.
I haven’t found learning Japanese as difficult as I thought I might. I think probably because I started a few months before lockdowns became a thing and I had time on my hands! I was nearly 40 when I started, and I’m nearly 45 now. I agree that the SRS online learning systems are good for some people such as myself and have made learning a language much easier.
I would just say make sure that you are doing things to help yourself learn, before you blame age and give up. If you just do flash cards with no context and isolated words, it’s way harder to actually remember their meanings, and that’s also true for wanikani, even with mnemonics. I’m the same age as you, and I don’t think our brains are worse at learning. But if you get that idea simply because one method you choose doesn’t work well for you, the danger is that you’ll say it’s just because you can’t do it, and not try anything further! But the truth is, sometimes you just have to experiment before you figure out what will work for you. Our brains will always learn if we give them enough time and incentive.
I’m in my late 30s and I agree with the others that it comes with pros and cons. On one hand I definitely feel that I can’t soak up new information as effortlessly as when I was a teen, on the other I’m more organized and more efficient in my studies.
Another positive aspect is that I find it easier to project in the future. Learning Japanese is something that takes years and when you’re young you can’t quite imagine what your life will be 3 years from now, it makes it harder to commit to these long term projects and maintain the discipline.
Language learning is not a linear process, there are ups and downs and some days it feels hopeless. You have to power through the bad days and keep at it and eventually you’ll reach your objective. You can’t fail, you can only give up.
I started learning Japanese when I was 15. Took a long break, and went back to it last year at 23. That’s still fairly young, I know.
There are some things I learned easily back then that I‘d probably have a hard time with now. I had so much stamina studying Japanese grammar. Probably because I hardly did anything else for a year lol
There are also just as many things that I couldn’t do at all back then that are comparatively easy now. I definitely didn’t have the discipline back then to study vocab or kanji efficiently, and I remember being so overwhelmed by this big task of “studying Japanese”, simply because I didn’t have the inner structure necessary to create a sort of overview of where I am now, where I want to go and what lies in between.
Absolutely seconding the time thing. The amount of time and energy I used to have available even in my teens vs now as a uni student is much smaller, and just imagining I had to balance working full time with language learning makes me cry.
I’m in my late 20’s and haven’t noticed anything special. If anything, the Japanese language learning journey has taught me discipline and determination to see things through.
In my mind I roll my eyes when people say “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” or that they envy my “youth and free time”. I also have an 8-5 job and other things to do!! It’s all about making sacrifices and not being lazy.
In your thirties I imagine it’s more likely a case of increased responsibilities and commitments competing for time than any significant mental decline — but even if it is the latter, what’s the alternative? I’m in my fifties, have drifted in and out of the language over the years, but still see real progress when I put in the effort.
I’m still pretty young (25), but I often noticed myself feeling like I pale in comparison to the me of just a couple years ago as a student. Maybe less drive, focus, and slower learning. After being aware of this for some time though, I started to realize it might just be me over estimating my past self. Like I tend to forget the days where I just didn’t feel like studying and all the struggling I went through to grasp a concept.
I know for a fact that I used to finish days with literal headaches and brain fog from how hard I was studying and trying to read VNs. I was able to learn a ton, so hindsight I know I learned a ton during that period of my studies. At the time though, I mean think about it. Even just at an hour a day, that’s only like 20 hours in 3 weeks. 20 hours is barely a drop in the bucket and there’s no way that progress is visible. In other words, I would have been working my butt off for days… Weeks with literal headaches from how much I was struggling and pushing myself to read basic sentences and making no visible progress. At the time I’m sure I felt like the biggest idiot on earth. But current me doesn’t really remember the struggle. The only reason I remember the headaches and brain fog is because it impeded my ability to do reviews or university studies so much that I had to deliberately read at the end of the day. So all I really see is the cumulative results I was able to get and be like “yeah I did good”.
Anyways, all that to say, I’ve got no doubt the brain gets a bit worse at learning as time goes on. But there might be some bias towards thinking past you was more impressive than they really were. Idk, at least for me I tend to forget the struggles it seems.
I don’t find it necessarily harder, what I struggle with is feeling more tired and trying to fit language learning into my routine - I have more responsibilities and roles/tasks to juggle nowadays than when I was younger. I do struggle with retaining information I’ve learned at times, but I feel that it’s more because I try to multitask instead of sufficiently investing time to learn these things.
I’m 34 years old, first tried Japanese aged 14, finally found “success” with it at 29. I’ve grown so much in patience in those years, and also learnt to defeat the ego. I don’t care if i sound like a rough caveman when i talk, i don’t care if i make mistakes, and I’m more open to laughing at myself now.
Pregnancy definitely messed with my brain though (and scientists have proven this phenomenon with MRIs). I found new vocab just wouldn’t stick.
Apologies for any typos, I’m one finger phone typing while feeding a baby!
There is an undeniable congnoscitive loss associated with age nevertheless (aside from having a stroke or other catastrophic disease like Alzheimer’s for example) it is also reversible with mental exercise, the so called “Neurobics” and inside them… Guess what… To learn a new language is one of the preferred techniques .
This has even been recorded with cerebral MRI studies in which the reduction of gray matter (also called encephalomalacia) does not appear in frontal lobe areas related with high mental functions opposed to the rest of the brain where the sulcus seem to loss their thickness.
So… If you want to avoid that uncomfortable feeling. Start learning japanese right now
Honestly yeah, I’m glad to see this topic cause I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’m in my early 30s, putting in several hours a day for over 3 years now, and while I’m undeniably making progress, I’ve been sort of displeased with the rate at which I’m managing to truly internalize things, and really starting to wonder if age is a part of it. Nothing we can do but keep going, cause we’re only going to be even older tomorrow, but I think it’s an unfortunate fact that the earlier you start the better might be way more true than we want to admit.
To be honest, learning Japanese has been going way better than any of my language learning I did in my teens.
A lot of that is the difference between the intrinsically motivated self-learning process and the externally driven school curriculum.
It’s entirely possible age is a factor that makes learning harder, but it’s just one of many, and in my case I’m certainly more prepared to learn a language now than I was back then.
I think as I get older, sure “learning a completely new thing from scratch” became harder. What I don’t know is how much that’s a function of age and how much it’s a function of “out of practice”. It’s been a long time since I DID try to learn something completely new.
On the other hand I’ve become way more effective at learning all kinds of things every day, when they’re additional things, subspecialties of things I’m already familiar with, master-level topics when I already have the basis, that kind of stuff. So I don’t know if it’s that I don’t learn as well, as I learn differently.
I’m 41. I don’t really notice much of any difference. But how would I even measure that? I just know I have been learning new things all my life and know how to do it and how it feels. Sometimes good sometimes bad. Lack of sleep and messing up your focus with multi-tasking are faaaaar more bigger problems for learning than my age. Like it’s not even on the same scale. So figure out your “system”, how you learn the best, it’s a whole journey itself, get enough sleep, excercise, and food, get your mind unscattered. And only after those maybe blame your age if things aren’t progressing… =P Either way I would say do what makes you happy / seems worth doing, you won’t get any younger.
