{"id":5164,"date":"2018-04-12T19:45:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T17:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skrivanek.sk\/uncategorized\/myths-about-language-learning-you-cant-teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks\/"},"modified":"2025-03-28T10:31:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T09:31:26","slug":"myths-about-language-learning-you-cant-teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/myths-about-language-learning-you-cant-teach-an-old-dog-new-tricks\/","title":{"rendered":"Myths about language learning: You can&#8217;t teach an old dog new tricks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just think\u00a0how many times you&#8217;ve heard similar claims. This persistent myth is a breeding ground for the language business revolving around pre-school children (declaring\u00a0<em>\u2018the earlier the better\u2019<\/em>), whose target group is frightened parents who eventually succumb willy-nilly to the pressure and systematically pay extra for English classes or an English kindergarten. The more ambitious ones play fairy tales in\u00a0English and try to educate in a\u00a0bilingual environment. Because they don&#8217;t want to miss the sensitive age at which a child can still learn language naturally.\u00a0<em>After that,\u00a0it won&#8217;t work.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>However,\u00a0experimental research into language acquisition shows that adults are typically better learners than children (although children do have exceptional ability in\u00a0one area,\u00a0which is pronunciation). The adult brain, unlike the child&#8217;s, has already done a lot and can, for example, understand a new language system much better because it applies it to the one it already knows from its mother tongue. Adult learners can also learn much more and in less time because they are able to concentrate, be patient and use analytical\u00a0skills effectively.<\/p>\n<p>There are many reasons why children may seem to learn faster. Studies often mention the time children spend learning. Let&#8217;s look at the example of a bilingual family that moves to a foreign country. Their child starts going to a local school to have about six hours of\u00a0contact with\u00a0the foreign language every day in\u00a0a natural environment, whereas the parent, attending a one-hour course once a week, struggles to catch up. But it does not mean that under the same conditions he would learn the language\u00a0more slowly.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that you can learn a language (or any other skill) even at a very old age has been repeatedly confirmed by research\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dixo.cz\/neuroplasticita-a-neurogeneze\/\">into the neuroplasticity<\/a><\/u>\u00a0of the brain.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mgr. Tereza Najberkov\u00e1, Language School Methodologist<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Children learn faster. They&#8217;re like sponges. It comes naturally to them and they don&#8217;t have to try too hard. I&#8217;ll never learn it. At this age, it just doesn&#8217;t go into the head anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6012,"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164\/revisions\/6012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.skrivanek.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}