Scientists reveal cut-off age for learning a new language

In terms of learning a new language, it is a common view that adults are harder to achieve than children.

Although it is difficult to prove, new research published in Cognition magazine actually indicates that there is a cut-off age, making it more difficult to choose new skills.

According to a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, if you want to achieve similar proficiency as a native speaker, you should start learning before 10 years old.

Interestingly, children under the age of 17 are still quite skilled to understanding the grammar of the new language, but it is here that the ability starts to become dull.

Scientists tested the grammatical ability of 670,000 people with different age and nationality so that participants were asked about their age, the time spent studying English, before being asked whether grammar is grammatically correct I asked about setting.

Approximately 246,000 participants speak English while growing, the rest will be bilingual or multilingual.

The most common mother tongue is - except English - Finnish, Turkish, German, Russian, Hungarian.

Most people who complete the test are in their twenties and thirties. However, the youngest participant is 10 years old, the oldest participant in the late 1970s.

Scientists have discovered that grammatical learning is the strongest in childhood and continues through to teens after analyzing dates using a computer model.

On the contrary, the results indicate that people may still be able to learn after 18 years but may not be able to reach native speaker proficiency.

Professor Josh Tenenbaum, Professor of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Brain and Cognitive Sciences, told BBC, coauthor of this study, "This may be a biological change, even social or cultural issues There is.

"In many societies there are a few minors aged 17 or 18. Then you can leave home, work full time or become a college student, all in all languages It affects you. Learning rate "

The important period assumes that the age problem is resolved first. The strict version of this hypothesis suggests that there is a cut-off age around 12 years old. Later, the student loses the ability to fully learn the language. However, the exact age at the end of the critical period is controversial, ranging from 6 to 13 years old, many people think that it is at the beginning of puberty. Therefore, this strict version was rejected for learning the second language as it is observed that some adult learners achieve similar native language pronunciation and general fluency. However, in general, early stages will proceed faster than usual, but adult learners in second language rarely achieve the local fluency indicated by children. This allows people to guess that age is indirectly related to other more important factors affecting language learning.

The younger you learn a foreign language, the more you will be able to speak fluently. In this formula, 6 to 7 years old is usually considered an important cut-off point. Through progress, people also believe that the development of accent begins with the acquisition of a foreign language in the adolescence of a person. Moving to Brazil at the age of 5 and moving to the United States at the age of 15 is a clear advantage for my language ability, even if it is a challenge in other ways.