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Comment by jasonjei | Hacker News Reader

Shouldn’t they start younger than 10? I remember reading that languages are easier to retain the younger you are.

I suppose it will be their fourth language for many, as they will still want them learn Swahili and/or English. But I know almost nothing about Kenya, so I may be wrong.

Kenyan here. You're actually right. English and Swahili are already taught in schools. Most kids speak at least another tribal language. So in this case, Chinese will be the fourth for many

Also, it's virtually impossible to gain fluency in a script after a very young age (around 5 if I recall correctly) and verbal language isn't much better, with native fluency very rare after the age of 13-17 or so.

Source please, and define fluency.

I learned english at 22, german at 25, and mandarin at 28, It took several years of daily studying for each language, but I did it, and I was able to use these languages in professional environments. Plenty of people do it in my experience.

I did state "native fluency" which is more descriptive.

Anyway, sure, here's a source I found quickly which actually makes stronger claims than I did: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/at-what-age-does-...

I speak 6 languages including some Japanese and I disagree with you. I also met people who learnt to speak languages by the age of 60 and they made it good enough for easy business.

I'm not sure which part you disagree with. I explicitly claimed "native fluency" is the hard part. See the source in my sibling (cousin?) comment.

I'm 41 and learning 2 languages right now. I might learn slower than a 5 year old but I retain my learning and it isn't a race...

I agree completely. I'm not sure if you thought I implied otherwise?

Yeah, I did think that is what you were implying.

I know immigrants who moved to the US in their 20s and 30s. Quite a few didn’t have much of an accent and I would’ve guessed they were born here but learned English in school due to immigrant parents.

Without fail the best speakers told me they lost their accent because they wanted to describe a huge up hill battle. Hard work, practice, and a commitment to figure out the right way to say it. Plus loads and loads of English TV.

This is absolutely not true. I started learning english when I was about 13 years old. Now I'm definitely fluet in English. So it's incorrect that you cannot achieve fluency in a foreign language after the age of five.

That's not what I said... Please re-read my comment.

What exactly are you saying? People learn language after the age of 5 all the time.

Yes. That's not what I'm saying. It's virtually impossible to learn a new script and have "fluency" (which I'll loosely define as being able to effortless read a page without processing individual letters) after a very young age. I read a study that described this recently that I'll try to find again.

That age limit is 13. However, learning new languages is the only skill that does not get significantly worse by age, and you can do till you turn 65. Sources are underway.

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