The age limit for studying....

[Le Baron]

On Friday evening I was perusing some maths videos on youtube and out of the corner of my eye I saw in the sidebar 'the age limit for..' Since this is a question which rattles around the language-learning community a lot it gives me a Pavlov's Dog response. So I watched the video and was surprised really that there is apparently a view (somewhere among some nebulous 'them') that people think they are simply 'too old' to learn mathematics.

It's not something I'd ever thought about. Hanging around language-learning on and off for so long it's mostly in this sphere that the idea of 'being too old to learn' arises as a discussion. Justifiably, because there is indeed a large time component and in contrast to mathematics, you often need the cooperation of other people, often well outside your circle; sometimes travel. Youth is the ideal position from which to fulfil both these criteria.

Nevertheless it was the attitude and approach. That you have these people who are, let's say, 25 or 26 or older late-starters on a college or university course, lagging behind the fresh-faced youths who are already well-travelled in the subject. They might complain of being 'too old' to start. At which, from my perspective now, I look at and say 'HA!' And yet above these there are those who return to education at age 30, 40, 50 and older, and I suppose all down the line they are secretly concerned that they are just 'too old' to really get anywhere with mathematics to the depth and level they could have, had they started decades ago. Yet this so often turns out to be false.

We never, or hardly ever, dissuade people from learning anything else at a post-school age with the suggestion of 'too old...too late'. When I was getting my current business going I needed extra income and travelled all the way to Rotterdam three times a week to give evening instruction in both pattern drafting (draughting) and garment making. About a third of the attendees were retired people. Some over 30 and feeling it was a 'last chance' at getting career skills. Some young fashion design students. I wouldn't say one group did better than the other, but individuals from all groups did well. Which puts it at an individual level, rather than an age limit. And there are always other impediments like self-doubt, self-consciousness.

On the whole though, people tend to believe they can learn things like joinery, a computer language, pottery, hang gliding even mathematics. Are all these different from language learning? Or rather, is language learning especially susceptible to an age cut-off point, due to the nature of its social element for learning and the large time factor? Perhaps lots of people starting lots of types of study secretly think they're past it and whatever is learned will be limited and anything learned a bonus. Yet it is in language-learning that there has been a strong countermovement against 'too old...too late..' Though I'd want to unravel how much this is simple motivational talk so that people at least make the attempt to try and learn something, rather than that there is no barrier. There is after all a real element of time and opportunity associated with age, despite the propaganda of life begins at 40...60...80.

[Irena]

I don't think there's an age limit per se, but I do think there's an age component. From what I've been able to tell, non-traditional (which in practice means older) university students will often do better than the young ones in fields where life experience is an asset (such as psychology or political science), but will lag behind their younger peers in anything that requires fast manipulation of abstract symbols (that will include both mathematics and foreign languages).

But of course it's not clear-cut. I bet I can learn languages faster than most people half my age. But that's due to experience: I've been learning languages my entire life. Basically, I've gotten worse at performing any given language-learning task (declension/conjugation tables definitely take longer to memorize), but I've learned how to set better tasks for myself. So, overall, I progress faster, even though each individual task takes longer. Long live experience!

I wonder how this would apply to something like music. I have zero musical training, but it would be awfully nice to learn how to play an instrument (piano perhaps?).

[tastyonions]

If you hang around math or physics communities you'll definitely run across the view that at a certain age you've definitively lost any chance of ever being a truly brilliant mathematician or physicist. I don't think this is anywhere near a majority view among people actually working in those fields but I've definitely seen it from time to time from students.

When I started learning my first foreign language I used to fret that my grammar or accent would never be 100% perfect because I had begun at age 28. But it turned out that I loved the process and the languages themselves so much that it didn't bother me too much. I'll still aim for perfect but be quite satisfied with "pretty damn good."

I run a French conversation group and I've seen senior citizens, one guy 75+ literally living in a retirement home, make better progress in the language over the time I've known them than people a third of their age. Motivation and consistency trump just about anything.

[Le Baron]

I don't think there's an age limit per se, but I do think there's an age component. From what I've been able to tell, non-traditional (which in practice means older) university students will often do better than the young ones in fields where life experience is an asset (such as psychology or political science), but will lag behind their younger peers in anything that requires fast manipulation of abstract symbols (that will include both mathematics and foreign languages).

But of course it's not clear-cut. I bet I can learn languages faster than most people half my age. But that's due to experience: I've been learning languages my entire life. Basically, I've gotten worse at performing any given language-learning task (declension/conjugation tables definitely take longer to memorize), but I've learned how to set better tasks for myself. So, overall, I progress faster, even though each individual task takes longer. Long live experience!

I wonder how this would apply to something like music. I have zero musical training, but it would be awfully nice to learn how to play an instrument (piano perhaps?).

This is a good point. Several things there relating to both experience feeding into knowledge and offering 'short cuts'. Plus the development of planning and structure tailored to your goals. So back to the basic observation that an older person arriving at the study of a very first second-language might well struggle, but also might not because they might have the aptitude, just never attempted it before.

It can be difficult to disentangle the causal factors, That someone might e.g. (at any age) buy a self-study course, not make much progress and assume they have no ability or are simply past it. Though they might just be someone who needs more outside guidance and motivation.

As for piano... It might be safe to assume a late starter won't become a virtuoso concert pianist, but much is possible. Like the case of Ryo Fukui who not only started late by piano standards (age 22), but he also taught himself! At age 28 he recorded a now classic jazz album Scenery in 1976.

[smallwhite]

John O'Connor decided at 60 to begin studying Italian. Now, at 86,

[Kraut]

You are never too old for learning something new, on the contrary learning something new slows down the process of ageing.

Here is one of the best video podcasts that I have seen on the subject.

But: Learning languages or whatever in a sedentary position for hours may not be a good idea!


Dem biologischen Alter ein Schnippchen schlagen – Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOcTFHW ... cienceCity

Heike A. Bischoff-​Ferrari ist UZH-​Professorin für Geriatrie und Altersforschung und leitet die grösste Studie über gesundes Altern in Europa." Sie hat einen ganz leichten schwäbischen Akzent. Die Fragen aus dem Publikum am Schluß des Videos sind schwyzerdütsch.

[Le Baron]

John O'Connor decided at 60 to begin studying Italian. Now, at 86,

Good link to an interesting older thread. Especially this from sfuqua:

I added another language during my 30s, but I didn't start a new language again until I was 58, almost 59. While my results have been different, my other two languages were learned in immersion environments, I have been stunned to find that there is very little difference between my language learning ability at 60 and my language learning ability at 30.

[Irena]

John O'Connor decided at 60 to begin studying Italian. Now, at 86,

Good link to an interesting older thread. Especially this from sfuqua:

I added another language during my 30s, but I didn't start a new language again until I was 58, almost 59. While my results have been different, my other two languages were learned in immersion environments, I have been stunned to find that there is very little difference between my language learning ability at 60 and my language learning ability at 30.

That's very interesting (and encouraging). I definitely noticed a decline in some of my language-learning abilities between my 20s and 30s, and I figured it was all downhill from now. But maybe it isn't! Perhaps there was a decline, and now I'm on a plateau, and nothing much will change unless I start suffering from dementia. It wouldn't be so surprising, either. Doesn't the brain keep developing until the mid-20s or some such? If so, it may be that the difference in language-learning ability between 22 and 27 is greater than the difference between 27 and 67. I wonder if there's any cognitive science research on this(?).

[Irena]

If you hang around math or physics communities you'll definitely run across the view that at a certain age you've definitively lost any chance of ever being a truly brilliant mathematician or physicist. I don't think this is anywhere near a majority view among people actually working in those fields but I've definitely seen it from time to time from students.

This suddenly reminded me of being in a gymnastics class at age 8 (I'd only just started), and having our coach inform us it wasn't very likely we'd ever get very good at gymnastics because we started too late. And so, at age 8, I learned I was past my prime. As it happens, I quit soon thereafter and never progressed much past cartwheels.

As for brilliance: very few people are truly brilliant. Very, very, very few. But there's a difference between brilliance and competence. Just because brilliance is out of the cards does not mean you cannot get quite competent at something. Fortunately, competence is often more than enough.

[badger]

I run a French conversation group and I've seen senior citizens, one guy 75+ literally living in a retirement home, make better progress in the language over the time I've known them than people a third of their age. Motivation and consistency trump just about anything.

people past retirement age generally have a lot more time available than working-age people - measured in hours-per-day at least.