Are Kids Really Better at Language Learning Than Adults?

During this period, children don’t only learn their native language. They also pick up the accent of the people they grow up with, especially their peers.7 As this critical period closes, it becomes very difficult to speak like a native. This is why immigrants such as Henry Kissinger, who learned English in his teens, speak with a foreign accent.

Language is a means to communicate and should be learned and used as such from the start.

vocabulary, and so on), as opposed to confidence issues or a lack of familiarity, which are actually much bigger problems most of the time for beginners.

Humans have few true “critical periods” with hard time limits, but we do seem to have several “sensitive periods,” which are defined as periods in which it is very easy to learn something or acquire a skill, and outside of which it is more difficult.[31] Language learning is the clearest case. Children can learn multiple languages easily, but this