Travel Archives • GloBelle Affairs

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October 8, 2024

Adult Language Learning After 30 is Possible

We’ve heard it, time and time again about adult language learning: iT’s sO hArD tO LeArN A nEw LaNgUaGe aS aN aDuLlt.

They say if you want to sound like a native speaker, your chances are better if you start learning a language before the age of 10. The adult brain must learn the language plus fight against applying the language rules of their original language and retrain their brain. Ok, ok, we get what research says.

But after spending the past two years rapidly increasing my Spanish-language skills across Latin America, I’ve grown to despise that claim. We hear it so much as the prevailing topic regarding adult language learning. Which opens room for self-fulfilling prophesies and excuses not to learn after age 10. The truth is, while it might be challenging — it isn’t impossible. Adults learn new languages every day. And we need to hear more of that conversation as well. Here are seven observations that need to be included in the language-learning conversations with just as much frequency:

1. Not all researchers agree on the same conclusions about the best learning age.

Researchers from three Boston Universities claim that even among native speakers, it takes 30 years to master a language fully. However, I noticed that the research never defined what constitutes mastery. Does that mean mastery of your one dialect or multiple? Was AAVE one of the dialects used in the study? Does mastery include an academic vocabulary and understanding of syntax and rhetorical devices or simply being able to communicate on a day-to-day basis? Elissa Newport, a Georgetown University neurology professor specializing in language acquisition, still needs convincing of some of the findings in that research. “Most of the literature finds that learning the syntax and morphology of a language is done in about five years, not 30,” she says. “The claim that it takes 30 years to learn a language just doesn’t fit with any other findings.” Five years is a lot more encouraging.

2. Childhood language learning is easier because we are better at teaching children.

With children, we engage all sorts of language-learning tools! Books with repetition and rhythm are covertly teaching language. Books like “Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? It isn’t just a silly little children’s book. It’s a phonics book that builds vocabulary. The interactive song game Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes is a language tool. So much interactive play as a child is geared toward making learning a language stick. As adults, we are given a long list of words to conjugate and commit to rote memory without context. If we want adult language learners to build language skills, we need to get them playing and singing and actively using the language within the context more!

3. Native English speakers don’t know language-construction rules in English.

Gather 100 English speakers with post-graduate degrees, and you’d be lucky if ten could accurately identify or define a “past participle.” If you asked the same group to identify a split infinitive in a paragraph or, better yet, just identify the infinitive. Very few, if any, would get it right.

Yet, this is a common way we approach foreign languages. The strongest emphasis is placed on grammar rules and language construction. We introduce topics like, “This is the conjugation for the past participle in Spanish.” That means nothing to most people. They don’t know what to do with that information. People do not know the technicalities of grammar laws, yet not knowing the rules does not impact their fluency.

I remember my high school Spanish class. We had this lengthy back-and-forth between the teacher and a student that went like this:

Teacher: Ustedes is the plural you form.

Student: There’s no plural of me. I’m the only me.

Teacher: No, no, it’s when you’re talking to a group of people.

Student: Why would I say “me” to a group of people?

This continued for way longer than it should, with the teacher using sterile, academic grammar terms. Finally, after so much back and forth, I realized “plural you” means “y’all.” When I announced my epiphany, a sigh fell over the class. No one rationalizes in their English-speaking mind that they’re using a first-person singular or first-person plural pronoun when they speak their native language. Yet, we expect adults to recall that construction when learning a new language. No one would explain “plural you” to a five-year-old learning a new language, yet somewhere along the way, we start teaching teens and adults this way.

4. Adult language learners need to hear language used in context.

Hearing the language used in context is pivotal for adult language learning. Language Instructors give adults and older teens a long list of verbs to conjugate with torturous drills. A native Spanish-speaking child has never done a single “o, as, a, amos, ais, an” drill a day in their life. They’ve heard word endings used in context and know when something sounds wrong. This method needs more prominence in the adult language learning approach.

Additionally, words and phrases don’t always directly translate. For example: “ir” means “to go” in Spanish. So naturally, when I placed my order, “Quiero una hamburgessa, no lechuga, ir,” I caused confusion. Finally, after two months of confusing Guatemalans, someone finally understood my direct translation. “Para llevar” or “For to carry” is how is the way to communicated this desire in Spanish. That real-life context gave me a learning experience that I will never forget.

5. Adult language learners want to know everything at once.

It takes a baby takes one year before speaking. Then, they only know a few (about 50) words most pertinent to their little worlds. These words are usually about familiar relationships and food. But adults want to know how to flirt, ask directions, order meals, discuss complex history, geography, and weather, ask questions, speak on the arts and politics, and tell compelling stories immediately!

Managing the expectation of needing to know everything at once and prioritizing the topics most pertinent to one’s age group and interests will not only give adult language learners confidence but also motivate them to delve deeper into learning. An adult will quickly lose interest if, after four months, all they’ve learned is “Donde esta la bibliotheca” or “Yo vivo en la casa azul” when they really need to learn how to order a medium-well steak.

6. We need a mix of native and non-native language teachers.

The United States already has an overall teacher shortage. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, teachers who are qualified to teach Spanish are even rarer. Often, those teachers are not native speakers or from a Spanish-speaking culture. However, knowing the culture is vital to knowing the language. Nuances and idiosyncrasies in how a language is used cannot be learned isolated from the culture. One must to go beyond textbooks and dictionaries to understand connotations. Native Language Speaking teachers aid in that connection.

That’s not to say non-native foreign-language teachers don’t have value. On the contrary, they fill the gaps in how students process a second language. Going back to my experience with translating “y’all” into Spanish, a culturally astute native English speaker teacher with awareness of southern dialect English would have known how to make that connection to a class of Kentuckians.

7. There’s no standardization of the Spanish taught in the United States.

Additionally, in the US, students get a cornucopia of native language speakers. Vocabulary and expressions can vary from country to country and Spanish teachers (native or not) are not always aware of or acknowledge the differences. New learners may get a teacher who emphasizes European-Spanish one semester and Mexican-Spanish the next. In my experience, language instructors often completely leave out the Spanish used in Southern South America.

On the other extreme, teachers may introduce the multiple forms of Spanish at once. For example, in Spain and Mexico, “coche” means car. But in Guatemala the same word means pig and everyone uses “auto.” I learned both. However, in Chile it means stroller. In four semesters of Spanish, that never came up. All of my teachers drilled “vosotros” used in Spain but never mentioned “vos” and “sos” used in South America. American language learners end up with a unique hybrid. My Spanish tests would include “How would you say xyz in Spain.” Meanwhile, native speakers thoroughly learn their one dialect before later being introduced to other variations. The lack of standardization of Spanish can lead to information overload, disengagement, and more time learning depth rather than breadth.

Adult language learning is possible and we need to emphasize language-learning conversations around opportunities rather than missed learning windows. Emphasizing that learning a new language later in life is an uphill battle is one of the major roadblocks to learning. Nothing — not age, not technique– improves learning outcomes more than curiosity a can-do approach to learning.

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Travel Connects to The Past, Present, and Future

Black Arizona landforms against a vibrant, flaming sunset

Travel connects us, not only to people in present day, but all thorugout time. I realized this while road tripping in 2016. On my quest to complete my “All 50 States” tour, I pulled over along a desolate highway. The sunset views against Arizona’s Painted Desert deserved so much more than a passing glance as I drove through. I got out of my car and stood amidst absolute, complete silence and watched nature take place.

I’d never seen anything like it. Iridescence cascaded from the heavens into earth like a visual coloratura across the sky. The creator painted momentary murals on rock formations. Fallen, petrified trees from the late Triassic period, — 225 million years ago —- interspersed throughout the barren landscapes soon gave way to majestic silhouettes accented by stars that seemed to applaud the performance.

There I stood. This little country girl a long way from home, standing somewhere between, “the bright blessed day and dark sacred night” that inspired Armstrong’s rejoicing in, “What a Wonderful World.”

Wonderful world, indeed.

God was just showing off.

At that moment, a long-buried movie quote rose to the surface of my mind:

“In the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped, and Earth began. It was so beautiful.”

I finally understood. When I watched that movie back in 1995 and all the dozens of times since I liked the quote. I grasped the concept. But for the first time, while standing next to my hoopty, all alone in a desolate desert… I understood. I too struggled to distinguish Heaven from Earth.

Engulfed in awe of this masterpiece, my heart overflowed with gratitude that the composer saw fit to share this moment with me. Surrounded by both vast nothingness and the density of significance at once, all the people I love came to mind. I wanted them to have a moment like this. I wished my loved ones could witness a moment like this. I craved for everyone to feel all of this. And perhaps they had.

As I edit this post six years after original publication, I recall the same scene, when Jenny tells Forrest that she wishes she could have been there with him. He responds, “You were.”

Just like Forrest, in the most beautiful moments of life, my heart and mind go to those I love; they are with me.

And maybe that’s a phenomenon of travelers. Of observers. Of dreamers or artists. When surrounded by beauty we are connected by generations of love. Travel connects us to other travelers. Travel connects us to ideas. To dreams. And to beauty.

desert sunrise with beautiful artistic hues of pinks, purples, and blues. — *I hope everyone get to know how these colors feel in their lifetime.*

Historian Perspective

As a historian, I view the world through a historical lens. Whereas an engineer may look at something and ask how? I ask why and look for clues left by previous generations to learn the story. I travel to cover as much ground as possible. So I intentionally increase the probability that I trace the steps of my predecessors. I try to have many unique experiences so when others experience the same, it bridges a gap of understanding in a way that couldn’t be explained by words and pictures.

For example, I grew up in a military family. Saturday mornings often started with a G.I. Party (the military community knows this is not an exciting event). Getting ready for school came with the expectation that it only takes three minutes to run “The Three S’s” (sh!t shower and, shave). After 22 years growing up in that environment, it wasn’t until I experienced military training I learned for myself. It is indeed possible to get ready in three minutes (which is 90 seconds more than what’s actually needed).

That experience helps me relate to every warfighter in every land — froom every timeperiod. It helped me understand and connect my veteran parents, grandfathers, uncles, cousins in a way that I didn’t before. I could empathize with soldiers embracing the suck in Brandywine. I had more data to consider the thoughts and emotions of officers battling their former West Point classmates. Because of my experiences, I recognize the same mentality of young soldiers defacing markers in Colonial Park Cemetery, Savannah. Shared experiences, especially those like travel, connect us to those past and present.

Travel Is a Vehical to Connects Us To The Past

Travel is one of the experiences that increase connection. Visiting Charleston filled me with an enormous sense of connection to the past. Although I don’t know for sure, the statistics make it highly probable that someone from my family’s heritage walked the same cobblestone streets centuries before. Living in Boston gave me insight on why as a young graduate student, Martin Luther King lived in Roxbury, so far from Boston University. And why many Black students and young professionals make the same choice today).

Visiting the homes and frequented localities of those from the past gives a snapshot of the surroundings, how they lived, and what influenced their thoughts. It helps to understand how they worked through some of their decisions and thought processes. Even after reading Little Women multiple times and watching both versions of the movie, it wasn’t until I visited the March family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Mass, that I felt that I really got to know the family and understood the context of their lives.

Tracing the steps of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Lois Mailou Jones in Paris’ Latin Quarter helped me to understand their muses. I know, from visiting the Kennedy Library, that Jacqueline took a cruise to Paris with friends during college. It was the best year of her life. And I can only imagine why based on my trips abroad in college, my trips to Paris, and the best year of my life which happened while abroad in Latin America.

Travel Connects to the Future

I don’t know details of travel or frequented localities for most of my family. I’d like to able to know and connect with my family in the same way I do with historical or fictional figures; but so much of my family’s history went undocumented.

Today, I do have some say over the breadcrumbs I leave for my future family. I can be intentional about the paths I leave behind. I can travel to search out a diversity of experiences. That way I can find some commonality with people I encounter today and yesteryear. But also in the future.

So, I travel. I do things. I leave clues for those to come. Perhaps, when my progeny find themselves randomly out in the middle of the desert, witnessing nature in all its glory, and they’re longing for someone to share it with, they’ll know they had an adventurous grandma/auntie who went everywhere and saw everything and felt the same way. Travel connects us to people — past present and futre.

Other stories on how Travel Connects us, check out these stories:

5 Reasons to Love Multi-Generational Travel • GloBelle Affairs

Renee McKenzie

Where Are Your People From?

People in the U.S. are generally less mobile than those in Europe. Certainly, you can point out a few exceptions: President Barack Obama, singer Amerie, basketball player Kobe Bryant, actor Boris Kodjoe, missionaries, and military members, and so on who have had experiences living long-term abroad. But for most Americans, the biggest move they will ever experience is the one they make when they leave home to attend college. Or perhaps they move across town, across the state, or in more rare occasions across the country. Some estimates say only 3 0 percent of Americans own a passport, thus even less than that have been out of the country, and even fewer have ventured outside of the North American continent. The concept of remaining in one’s own country is simply unheard of in Europe. Why? Because the European countries are small enough that a two hour drive can launch you across international borders into neighboring countries with different languages and varied cultures.

I believe it is because of our lack of travel experiences that we Americans are particularly comfortable putting simplified labels on other people in an attempt to categorize their background and make assumptions of their beliefs and upbringing. It bothers us when we cannot readily categorize someone — in essence, simplify our understanding of their being. I am not saying Europeans do not do the same thing as well, however, I do believe they are more aware that simple labels do not adequately classify people because they have the opportunity to come across a diversity of people every day. You may say, “America is very diverse! We have so many different ethnic backgrounds that make up Americans.” But that’s just it…at the end of the day we are all Americans with the same primary culture.

In Europe, these simplified categorizations become, well, not so simplified. When you ask a person where he is from, you can expect a variety of answers. Truly, what does that question mean? In the U.S. you will either get a response that articulates where a person was born, where that person grew up, or where that person identifies as home. On rare occasions you may get an answer that deals with lineage to another country. Recently at a Mexican restaurant in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, the owner had the strangest accent that I could not place. My friends and I asked where he was from.

“I’ll give you your meal on the house if you can guess,” he said, “But you’ll never guess.”

I guessed he was a Brit. I would say I was closest, but was I really? He was born and reared in South Africa by parents of English decent. He served in the United States Military, lived in southern California where he learned how to cook Mexican food, and then he moved to Germany for, what else, love. So how is a white South African of English decent who served in the United States military and has lived in Germany for a large portion of his life identified? He didn’t grow up with the same experiences as a British child. He’s kind of South African…but not a Dutch South-African, as he made certain we were aware. According to the article, “Black, White – or South African”, 82 percent of white South Africans identify themselves as South African as opposed to only 44 percent of the black majority of residents there. Yet only 5 percent of white South Africans consider themselves as African. Seems inconsistent right? How can one be South African but not African?

The South-Africa-with-English-lineage-Mexican-restaurant-owner asked how I’d describe where I was from.

That’s been the kicker since I have lived in Germany. Do these people want to assume I’m a tourist and desire to know where in the United States I am from, or do they want to know where in Germany I live, or do they want to know about the origins of my European last name? During a visit to France, a man refused to call me an American. I told him my German & Scottish heritage. African was the only label he would accept. African — as if that label is not complex enough in itself. The Mexican Restaurant owner talked about how he’s called folks back in the United States “African American”, and they corrected him with more accurate labels which influenced him to no longer label people, or to live by the labels incorrectly adhered to him.

The discussion with the restaurant owner led me to recall a student in one of my undergraduate courses who discussed her dilemma whereby she was encouraged to apply for an African-American scholarship. The problem? She was actually only “African”. She emphasized that there was a big difference between African, African-American, and Black American. The cultures, heritage, and traditions are different. That same year, a white South African who earned his American citizenship applied for that same scholarship, causing a stir when it was awarded to him. Some claimed he was more representative of the title “African American” than the intended scholarship target group who were actually black American students who had never been to the continent; yet some refused to accept this pale-skinned man as African even though he lived in Africa for the majority of his life. Perhaps South Africans do not consider themselves as African since others on the outside have a hard time accepting them as such. Is saying that a white person cannot be an African equal to saying that a black person cannot be American or European? How is it different? That was the year I no longer considered myself African American but a Black American.

Then there’s the concept of the Black American vice the American Black which stems from the consciousness of how one self identifies. The differences lie in the distinction of meaning when the words “Black” and “American” are used as an adjective or noun. Is one a Black (noun) who identifies with the world’s collective Black population and you happen to be the American (adjective) representation of Black? Or is one an American (noun) who identifies with America as a whole and happens to be a brown-skinned (adjective) representation of “American-ness”? My college roommate said she thought all the
Jews of the world were united as one until she made a pilgrimage to Israel. She then realized she is certainly a Jewish American and not an American Jew.

I have two friends whose identities are a patchwork of beautiful culture, birth, and residence. Annie is a first Generation American from Ghana. Bibi is a first generation American from Nigeria. They speak to their parents in Twi and Yoruba respectively. They grew up with African dress, manners, music, family gatherings, and seemed to know everyone from their countries within a 100 mile radius. Annie had both a traditional southern debutant ball as well as a Ghanaian event where she was introduced to society. I have had classmates who were first generation Americans from Senegal and Sierra Leone, they seemed more representative of the term “African American” than me. I identify more with the “Black American” whose roots are so deeply embedded in America’s history that I cannot claim a particular country in Africa, but could certainly lay legitimate claim to origin from countries on the European continent.

In Europe I find more and more intriguing stories of identity like this. Just recently in the Canary Islands someone approached my beau and I. “American Accents!” he exclaimed before asking where we were from. He called himself a native Virginian (but didn’t call himself a Southerner, though he did label me as such.) He said he left a lucrative job as an attorney after being disgusted when he discovered that justice was dependent on income. Instead, he chose a profession as a videographer recording whales and sea life in Spain. His mother was from Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and he held dual citizenship in Spain and the U.S. He spoke with quite a strange accent. He almost sounded British, which made me wonder if he developed his dialect while hanging around the Brits who inhabit the islands, or perhaps his mother was a British Canary Island dweller or a native Spaniard. There he was, a fellow southerner with a complex identity. I wonder if he ever reflects on his unique identity.

One of the most intriguing conversations of my life was with someone with an unclassifiable identity. My beau and I were dining in a fancy French restaurant in downtown Stuttgart (Le Cassoulet you’ve got to try it if you’re ever in the area). Our interest was inexplicably drawn to a party of four at a nearby table. They flowed smoothly in conversation switching back and forth from French to German. My Beau, a mildly talented French speaker, eavesdropped to see what he could understand. Finally, the most verbose of the group had enough wine to break the ice with us. We asked if he was French or German. The three men and one woman in the party chuckled. “Where are we from?” the lady pondered, buying time until she could decide how she would tell the story. The lively man’s German-Jewish parents knew something was heating up in Germany before WWII, they fled to Shanghai just before he was born.

“Why Shanghai?,” I asked.

“Why not?,” was her response.

The West had restrictions on immigration at that time. So the only place to go was east, “and who wants to go to Poland?” the man joked (or so I think). So his family, like many others, went Far East where he spent the first seven years of his life in China. When it was safe to return to Europe, his family settled in France. His first European home was France. Now he is a well-traveled business man who frequents Stuttgart. So where is he truly from, and how does a one-city or one-country response to “where are you from” adequately articulate anything about this man’s experiences?

In The South you’ll often times hear, “Where are your people from?” as if the answer will validate your existence and shed light on your character and what is to be expected of you. Sometimes people will proudly tell you the county or state they hail from or even what schools they attended as if that should tell you all you need to know of them. It’s not uncommon for folks in The South to live on the same family land for generations, so perhaps that question was appropriate many years ago. But since WWII, people have been set in motion and are constantly on the go. Among the hundreds of discoveries I’ve made about myself and the world through my European experience, I am learning that it is less apt to try to define people by where they are from than to get to know their story. Accents, bone structure, skin color, eye shape, language, teeth, and mannerisms can help gauge where a person is from but you’ll miss out on their amazing story if you stop there and don’t get to know them. Although our history forms the building blocks of our collective societal foundation, it’s our personal experiences that completes the construction of the individuals we truly are.

I challenge my readers to venture out and get to know someone’s story; even someone you think you know quite well (like a family member or co-worker with whom you sit beside every day). You may have to build relationships up or break barriers down to get past the “What are your hobbies, how many kids do you have” type questions. Wonderful soul-revealing conversations include discussions of what drives and motivates a person or how they overcome conflict. You might be delightfully surprised to find that your unassuming aunt has stories that offer a depth to who she is, and that could inspire you for years to come.

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