While we know children pick up languages as easily as they pick up dirt from playing outside, the myth that seniors can’t learn a new language seems a particularly pervasive one many people still believe. Older brains have more data to retrieve, and so sometimes sifting through the files can take a tiny bit longer. But, scientists and research tell us seniors are just as capable of learning a new language as a person of any age.
In fact, because the years of multi-multi-tasking are behind us– raising children, working full time, taking care of the house, serving on the PTA, the list goes on– life is a little slower. As I have discussed before, we are generally happier now than in our young and middle years. All these changes create an opening in our cognitive function, which allows us to feed our brains fresh information, cue the French, Spanish, or Japanese language lessons.
Also, our desire to master Arabic makes the learning this time around fun and exciting, verses when we were forced to memorize lists of irregular verbs to pass a test. This new mind-set makes a huge difference by firing up our brains to absorb all the beautiful words in the Italian language.
Bellissimo!
