[dragonwriter]

> My understanding is that the younger you are the easier it is to pick up a foreign language.

IIRC, while that's long been a popular belief, it's not all that clear that it's true; a major effect, if not the whole effect, comes from it being easier to spend more time on it when younger. This portion of the effect is equally true of computer languages.

[wallflower]

While the “critical period” hypothesis is not proven, language acquisition is an automatic process for almost every human child, given that they are in an environment where they are being spoken to.

Also, recent research suggests that the ability to differentiate sounds of a certain language rapidly narrows after a child leaves the baby stage.

> By 10 to 12 months, however, monolingual babies were no longer detecting sounds in the second language, only in the language they usually heard.

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/health/views/11klass.html

[tjr]

I feel like I could pretty easily be fluent in more natural languages if, as with programming languages, "fluency" included being able to look things up in reference manuals, and if my expression of the language was limited to reading and writing, rather than listening and speaking.

[jhbadger]

That's actually how classical languages (Latin, Ancient Greek, Babylonian, etc.) are generally taught. Even professional classicists are generally not expected to speak their ancient tongues and using dictionaries are par for the course for making translations.

[tjr]

Clearly, I should have opted for Latin in fulfillment of my required foreign language credits in college. :-)

[wallflower]

Yes, you have identified why computer language “fluency” is not on the same level as foreign language “fluency”. While you can communicate with reading and writing in a foreign language, it limits your ability to connect with people. Whereas with computer languages, it is almost all reading and writing, especially in whiteboard interviews :)

[faceplanted]

Based on my understanding, children have a much easier time for several reasons, none of which are inherent to being children, but are extremely common among children, specifically.

* Massive amounts of input data (Just all over the place) * Involuntary immersion (Your parents can just choose not to speak to you in your first language, a shop teacher can't) * Contextual examples (people very clearly pointing at things and labelling stuff when they use language) * 1 on 1 tutelage (This one is super important and extremely expensive for adults)

An adult given this situation willingly will learn a language extremely quickly.

The biggest argument against young people learning languages more easily than adults is the learning outcomes of children without bilingual parents in school language classes.