Children are not better at learning languages.

 You think they're better.

They often get better results too.

But they're not better at learning languages. At all.

Let me explain.

Oh and I know that some of you with a degree in "etchyucation" and 50,000USD in student debt are saying:

"Akchyually, children's brain plasticity is better."

And?

Let me ask you something?

Are children better at studying law?

Are they better at math?

No, of course not!

Children aren't better at anything text or numbers related!

Because they're not as smart as adults!

Because children's cognitive abilities are still developing.

Children also have much less life experience and cultural context.

There's a lot of stuff in their own language they don't know, that is common knowledge for adults.

Most children also have short attention spans and no discipline.

Children don't read very well or very fast either.

So yeah, they're much worse at learning languages.

Or anything really.

So why do so many people think children are better at language learning?

Why do children seem better at it and often get better results?

They get better results because:

1. They spend a lot more time practicing (by orders of magnitude).

2. They use a better system.

Children learn languages through exposure and interaction.

Adults usually attempt learning through direct instruction and textbooks:

Classes and grammar books, which are extremely boring and inefficient.

And these days adults also "learn" with useless apps like Duolingo.

Children are not better, they just spend a lot more practicing.

And they learn by doing, getting massive (truly massive) amounts of input.

And when living abroad, children also have no choice but to learn:

Years ago I had a couple of clients who wanted to learn Portuguese after moving to Portugal.

They complained that asking them to spend 10-20 minutes a day watching or listening to content in Portuguese was too much.

But then they also complained their daughter was learning Portuguese much faster than them.

Their daughter was going to school in Portugal.

Over 6 hours a day of Portuguese immersion.

She wasn't better at language learning.

She was literally getting 3600% times more practice than them. Every single day.

You can live in any country you want but if:

1. You work online in English.

2. Spend most of your time online in English.

3. Your social circle are other English speaking expats.

There's nothing in the air in that country that will make you learn the language by breathing.

Ok good to know...What's in it for me?

This is what you can learn from this:

You need massive exposure to the language: Massive Input.

This means massive amounts of reading and listening.

You need massive amounts of intensive input:

Lots of repetitions with the same content to learn the basics well.

As well as massive amounts of extensive input:

You need to read and listen to as much authentic content as possible: Books, podcasts, articles, shows, etc.

You can make them more comprehensible by memorising relevant, niche-specific vocabulary.

Forget about moving to the country or talking to native speakers.

That's not a learning system, that's wishful thinking.

Focus on input until you understand well.

Don't use grammar books, learn grammar by pattern recognition through repetition.

Combine intensive input for the basics and extensive input for comprehension.

And most important: Practice every single day.