So, there was an over 50’s thread a few years ago. I’ve taken a few italki classes and the teachers keep saying I’m N4 based on the first lesson, because my comprehension is sort of OK. But I learned what grammar and vocabulary I know listening to Japanese musicals and actor interviews, so I know words like 再演 but don’t know a lot of super, super basic grammar and vocabulary and I don’t know that many kanji. Most of my learning has been relatively passive listening. I’m in the middle of wanikani level 4. I’m thinking of spending a week or two just doing reviews before I keep going, so that I don’t get buried. I’m worried I won’t be able to retain what I am learning. I have friends who spent years learning Japanese and don’t remember much of what they studied. I now have the time and resources to pursue this, but maybe it’s a little late. I would like to study in Japan partly to be able to do things like get a credit card and telphone number and more easily rent someplace to live. I am trying to figure out where someone my age won’t be completely out of place. At first I was set on Tokyo, but now I’m thinking Osaka might be less crowded and easier to actually make happen. If I could get to a real N3 level (the level more that the test score) and be able to communicate at that level and maintain that I would be happy. I’m a fairly hard worker. Help?
You’re definitely not too old. Things might take a little longer than kids with their high neuroplasticity, but you are absolutely still capable of learning. Forgetting happens to us all and you’re going to have to relearn things you already studied as you go along, but it gets a little closer to locking in permanently each time. Presumably your friends forgot longer term because at some point they stopped consistently studying. The most important thing you can do is keep it a regular, daily practice. Often people will tell you they studied for years but that means sporadic, on and off, not particularly serious attempts.
I definitely think you’d be best served by getting in some grammar studying when you can – learning kanji in isolation the way WK teaches is a fine option but it has the worst individual returns, so I’d do it in conjunction with other things. Focus on the basics until you can get started learning more from what you read and hear, even if that’s just graded readers and youtube videos / podcasts for learners for a while. If you really want to do it, I guarantee in the absence of outright cognitive disorders there’s no reason you can’t.
Or, looking back at how you described yourself, if you’re N4-ish comprehension-wise you might be close to already learning from input more – it’s all about taking a piece of Japanese that you can sort of handle, and with the help of internet lookups, dictionaries, asking others, etc making an effort to figure out any part that’s new to you. Repeat that, a lot, slowly working up in difficulty, and it’s the best way to improve.
I’m pretty confident that when/if you’re in Japan, surrounded by Japanese every day, you not only won’t forget your Japanese, you can’t. It would be like forgetting English (or whatever your native language is). Not possible.
At your (our) age, you’re NOT going to be out of place in Japan. Unless you’re hanging out in universities or nightlife, 50s is unremarkable, older people everywhere you look.
As far as the title “wasting my time” - as opposed to what, doing crossword puzzles or watching TV in your spare time? At the least you’re expanding and exercising your mind and fighting off cognitive decline as you age.
Have a look at Kató Lomb. She learned a few languages in her younger years, but she is most famous for speaking a huge number of languages and most of them she learned in her 40s or later.
Languages aren’t easy, no matter when you learn them, but I have zero doubt that you’ll be able to learn Japanese given time and motivation, regardless of your age.
Thank you. The bit about sporadic on and off not being affective is spot on. I needed to learn Spanish for work, so my Japanese learning had to take a back seat for a long long time.
If you have the motivation, it’s never too late. It might have possibly been easier at a younger age but maybe you wouldn’t have had the motivation or time or resources then. The important thing is that you are the age you are now, and you can accomplish your goals as long as you know what they are and can put in the effort to get there. (At least for this, it might be too late in life to transition to becoming an Olympic gymnast, for example). 
I think if you can actually move to Japan that should definitely be beneficial. The main thing is as long as you’ve got motivation and dedication, and put the work in, you’ll get there - if maybe it takes a little longer than it might have before or not isn’t important.
I was doing my last reviews of the day and was not able to name the radical “dry” and was discouraged and went to the forums. Thanks, going back to work now.
I think being young and being old both have unique advantages when it comes to language learning. Everybody always talks about how kids learn languages easily due to their brains still being in language learning mode, but noone talks about how the decades of lived experience will enhance your learning.
Older people have learned a lot already. They might have seen when they failed and when they succeed, seen huge motivation boost turn into burnout, learned to avoid the pitfalls, know how they learn best, failed enough times to know that failing is part of the process, they might not feel the need to speedrun anything anymore (well, a speedrun for young ones is like 3 months, for older ones it might be more like 2 years), etc. Older people have a huuuuuge chunk of life experience that makes learning a language seem like just another long term task/hobby/project, plus the bonus of having a more stable and settled life and the experience to deal with stressful times.
As an older person,who enjoyed language learning even in their teens and twenties, I can attest, it’s way more fun for me to learn later and the added experience makes it less stressful. I have way more endurance and am able to keep realistic goals. I also know what to do when motivation wanes and how to keep up with stuff even when occasionally “life happens”. I know my preferred learning methods and know how to keep up with multi year projects. I experienced lots of failures and saw how despite that the overall outcome still is fine. I think all that beats having a brain with a bit more neuroplasticity ^^
No, no, no. Never too old for learning. Only good things will come from carrying right on.
I’m likely older than you, ,and I haven’t found that age has made the slightest bit of difference….it may if you tell yourself it will, in that you will tense up? But other than that, no.
The main reason I am learning Japanese and my main resource is Takarazuka - so I also have an interesting vocabulary….
Takarazuka got me started on Japanese musicals. I wish there were Japanese subtitles.
If it’s something that makes you happy, keeps you motivated and helps keeps your brain healthy there’s no downside to learning when you’re older. I only see positives. (I am older too).
My mum is 67 and asked me the other day how she could get started learning Japanese (her exact words were “I could do it instead of scrolling facebook”). She learned tourist German in her 50s, and completely changed careers later in life too. It’s never too late!
That’s true if you make the bare minimum effort to engage with the language. I live in a foreign country speaking a foreign language, and I do find that being immersed every day does make it easy to remember and even improve my ability to speak and understand the language without active study, but that’s because I actually put in the effort to learn the basics and bootstrap the process. I’m surrounded by other expats/immigrants who just do everything in English and are still incapable of functioning in the local idiom even after spending nearly a decade here.
That said @Charlie29 is clearly putting the work in so that should work out nicely. I just wanted to nitpick this because there are people who seem to genuinely believe that if you’re surrounded by a language you’ll naturally learn it through osmosis without even trying.
I agree 100%. I’ve been studying foreign languages since my pre-teen years and I definitely feel like I don’t absorb languages as efficiently as I used too, but my experience also means that my study is generally more effective.
I also think that people overestimate how easily young kids learn languages. I think people are fooled by the fact that they don’t remember having to learn their own native language as if it happened overnight without effort, but they discount the fact that they had to go through nearly a decade of constant immersion and feedback from parents and teachers to reach baseline fluency. Of course that is also a bit misleading because toddlers have to learn everything, not just language, but still.
I was also taught English continuously through school (and then later on my own) starting at age 9 or 10 and only reached proper fluency in my early-to-mid 20s.
there is this one woman on youtube. in her 50s and currently in japan studying at a language school.
you can do anything you set your mind to 
She is a ‘vlogger’?
Do you have a link to that?
I started learning when i was in junior high or high school,
i then took 3 years of Japanese in University in my 20’s,
and then proceeded to be in talking groups and hanging out with Japanese locals in my country
I am now 40 and still very VERY far from fluency, because i did not keep up with immersion and didn’t sit my butt down and put in the necessary time.
It requires a lot of immersion to fully learn a language. Just learning words or grammar is not sufficient, you need to use it - constantly, preferrably every day - both passively (listening, reading) and actively (speaking, writing).
Something I decided to do now to boost my studies:
- take a private tutor — this guarantees i have a weekly commitment that forms a solid basis for my schedule.
- I am starting to actively utilize the language arbitrarily: e.g. - describing to myself in Japanesen what i did today or what i plan to do, etc. It could be the most mundane and uninteresting stuff - but the more you practice saying them, the more natural they would eventually come to you.
I think that past a certain childhood age, it doesn’t really matter if you’re starting to learn at 18 or 25 or 45 or 65 - assuming your motivation is high and you’re willing to invest the time.
Traveling to the country itself is always ideal, but it’s not the only option. You can always find either virtual study pals (for language exchange), private teachers, or even just locals who speak the language.
Thank you for this reply. I appreciate the encouragement from people who say if you just try hard, you can do it. I believe this, and I have learned a lot in the last three months or so after a very, very long time away from Japanese, because I am very motivated to do this. But, the reality for me is that unless I made learning Japanese my major focus in life and sacrificed most other pursuits, I will always be a child in Japanese. At best, I can become a slightly older child than I am currently. As long as I am enjoying the process of learning and am not missing out too much on social and family life than it is worth the sacrifice.
I first studied Japanese 20+ years ago when I was 14 years old. Stopped after a few months, then again at 17. Stopped after a few months, then again when I was maybe 19 or 20 because a college class. Then after that I pretty much stopped completely - I might have mused studying for a day or two but nothing of substance.
Now I’m in my 30s and you know what? I remembered a fair amount of things! I didn’t forget everything. I was roughly a mid-N4 level when I returned. So it really varies per person and likely based on other factors too like how they studied and how far they got.
And it’s not too late. Sure, I’m not 50+, but I am 35 and I’ve definitely started to feel my age in that between work, taking care of two toddlers, and lack of sleep, things require a lot more explicit effort than they used to.
But age also means I have more money to throw at a problem than I used to and thanks to tools like WK and others (as well as thanks to being more mature and having more discipline and a clear goal of actually going to Japan), I’ve made some great progress in the past consistent 16.5 months of studying to go from mid-N4 to getting a 69% on an N2 mock exam two days ago. And I’ve never been to Japan or gone to a language school.
All it takes is showing up and putting effort, and you will learn. The pace and resources might vary per person, but the one consistent factor is putting in the effort.
I’m not especially interested in the non-Zuka musicals, though there are a few people I follow post Zuka (often they don’t specialize in musicals though…). Is there anyone or anything you’re particularly interested in?
And yes, Japanese titles are super helpful when you can get them, as are the occasional script transcriptions you can find