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For decades, we’ve heard the same idea repeated in classrooms, offices and training programmes: children are naturally better at learning languages. On the surface, it makes sense as children very naturally pick up their native tongue and even foreign languages when living overseas, while when adults attempt to learn a new language, they struggle, make mistakes and progress much more slowly.
It’s a comforting story, but it’s not true.
In reality, adults are highly capable, often more efficient, and in many cases actually faster at learning languages than children. The difference isn’t biological talent. It’s the learning style you employ, the environment in which you do it and the way training is designed.
At Babel, we work exclusively with adult learners, and the varying progress our learners make helps us and our tutors to adapt the way we deliver our training in order to get the most out of each language training programme.
This post explores why adults are not worse language learners, what makes them uniquely effective, and how targeted training can be tailored to help them learn quickly and confidently.
The belief that children learn languages better usually comes from one of two places:
Children living abroad often spend five to six hours a day hearing, speaking and repeating the new language at school and in social settings whereas adults rarely have this luxury and may only get a few hours a week. Naturally, the child appears to “learn faster,” but the difference is actually exposure, not ability.
Children have little fear of getting things wrong and will happily repeat, experiment and imitate without worrying about how they sound. Adults, on the other hand, are a lot more self-conscious and aware of errors they make in another language as well as the reaction of native speakers to these, and this can slow down practice and overall acquisition of the language, but it doesn’t reflect cognitive ability.
When training is designed specifically for adult learners, studies consistently show that adults can outperform children in:
In other words: adults are not worse language learners, rather they’re simply different kinds of language learners.
Adults bring enormous strengths to the learning process:
This allows adults to anchor new language to familiar ideas, speeding up learning. Skills and strategies that have been used previously to learn other things can be transferred to the language learning process.
Adults can understand why grammar works, not just copy it. This is one of the biggest differences between adult and child learning. Young learners absorb language implicitly through repetition, imitation and constant exposure, without needing to understand rules.
Adults study with purpose, whether that’s for work, communication, relocation or simply personal development. Motivation is one of the strongest predictors of success and we always encourage our learners to set clear personal goals for themselves at the start of every programme.
Adults use techniques like repetition, chunking, pattern-spotting, reflection and self-correction much more effectively than children. They can apply these strategies deliberately and consistently, which accelerates learning and helps them retain new language more reliably.
Adults know how they learn best and can adjust their strategies accordingly whereas children are still developing this skill. Adults can recognise when a technique isn’t working and switch to a more effective approach, making their learning more efficient and intentional.
These aren’t minor advantages: they’re huge!
While adults have significant strengths over younger learners, they also face many real and important obstacles, but none of them are about cognitive ability:
All of these challenges are environmental, not neurological.
Research shows that adults thrive when training is:
At Babel, this is the foundation of our approach to language learning.
We’ve spent nearly three decades working with professionals across various industries, from engineering and finance to retail, transport, pharmaceuticals and more.
Our training is built on the principles that adults:
We design programmes that suit the realities of adult learning, not classroom fantasies about childhood language acquisition. The result? Our learners see faster, more meaningful progress than they ever expected.
The myth that “children are better language learners” can be discouraging, especially for professionals who want to develop stronger communication skills. But the truth is empowering: adults are excellent language learners. They just learn differently.
With the right training, designed specifically for adult cognition, confidence and real-world goals, adults can progress quickly and successfully. And at Babel, we’re here to make that happen.
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