In the age of globalization and multiculturalism, knowing different languages is a blessing. Many studies have found that the best time to learn languages is in the very early years of life, but new research says it's never too late to become a polyglot.
For them foreign languages always comes in handy, especially when let's go to an unknown environment, where we have to communicate in the native language of the people we are talking to. We've gotten to the point where we don't really care no need to go abroad, to speak in a foreign language, since in the country where we live, more foreigners every day.
Scientists have been saying for years that it is the best time to learn foreign languages in early childhood, a new research conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, showed that those who want to learn a foreign language, had to start learning it before the age of ten. The brain is the most receptive new for them up to 17.4 years – young people among At the age of 17 and 18, they have developed very high abilities to understand the grammar of a new language, but this period is also the time when this the ability begins to slowly deteriorate.
Scientists are at 670,000 people analyzed, what is their knowledge of the grammar of a foreign language, English, and they took into account how old are the participants, how long they have been learning the language, in what way they learn and how they speak and write grammatically.
246,000 participants is a whole life spoke only English, while the rest of the participants spoke two or more languages (in addition to English, the native languages of the participants were Finnish, Turkish, Russian and Hungarian). Most of the participants were old between 20 and 30 years. He was the youngest participant 10 years old, and the oldest was in late seventies.
Data analysis showed that the easiest way to learn the grammar of a foreign language is in childhood and carry good knowledge with you all the way to teenage days. You can learn a foreign language quickly even in later years, but you will more difficult to achieve knowledge that is at the level of a native speaker. The answer to the question why this ability decreases after the age of 18 is not clear to the researchers, but they state that it is probably the influence sociological, cultural or biological factors.
More information:
sciencedirect.com
