I received a comment recently, saying that learning languages as an older person is almost an impossible task. As someone who has learned 10 languages after turning 60, here’s what I think about the topic.
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I’m 66. After I retired I set myself two tasks. One was to relearn and refresh languages I had learnt when I was young but which had become rusty or dormant over the years. I studied Russian and Czech at university in the 1970s and I spent a couple of years after retirement relearning these. I hadn’t forgotten the grammar but I needed to refresh my vocabulary and learn new words which didn’t exist when I first learnt them.
Then I started to learn Romanian as I have a group of Romanian friends both here and in Romania. I have reached a level now where I can read detective novels in Romanian. I’ve just finished a Romanian translation of Jo Nesbo’s ‘The Son’. I have now just started on Slovenian as I adore this country.
I am convinced this learning is keeping my brain active. The main way in which I have changed since I was younger is that I no longer spend time learning languages I have no personal reason to learn. Just liking the language isn’t enough. But I’ll keep working to improve the languages I know until I drop.
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