Am I Too Old To Learn Japanese?

Many people want to learn Japanese but they will always give the excuse of being too old to learn …but is there any truth to that?

The simple answer is NO, you are never too old to start learning Japanese.   

You Are Never To Old

The reality is that you are never going to be too old. You can pretty much learn anything, at any age and this is especially true when it comes to languages.

I am sure there are plenty of arguments like “you can’t become a distinguished novelist in Japanese if you start learning the language when you are 90 years old” …well yes, but I’d ask you if you could do that in your own language, which you have been speaking your whole life.  

If we just take a step back and ask “can we learn the language” the answer is yes, regardless of age. How competent we get may be a different question, but I am fairly confident that we can ALL reach a decent level of competency in Japanese.

Maybe we will not reach native levels, but we can all reach a strong intermediate level for sure …and this isn’t down to age. You will find older people reaching higher levels than kids.

It’s not about age, it’s about how much effort and time you put in, so don’t worry about how old you are, you can start learning at anytime in life.

It Still Takes The Same Amount Of Time, No Matter How Old You Are

When you actually look at how languages are learned …or should I say acquired, this is usually measured in time.

What this means is if you spend around X amount of time with a language, it should be enough time for your brain to have had enough exposure to the words and grammar and generally it should be able to make sense of things.

Of course this not an exact science and there can be all sorts of things influencing the results, but ultimately, it will all take us around about the same amount of time to learn Japanese.

It doesn’t matter how old we are, we all still need that same level of exposure. How long this actually is a little debated. The Foreign Service Institute says their students need 2200 hours of Japanese study to reach a decent level.

That is quite a lot, but if you made anyone, of any age study Japanese for this amount of time, they will see results and they should have some basic level of Japanese after this.  

(You can read more about – How Long Will It Take To Learn Japanese?)

You Will Have Longer To Advance If You Start Young

While we may all need the same level of input to reach certain levels, it is clear that starting younger is going to have its advantages.

The younger you start, the longer your runway to expand your knowledge is. Someone starting at 10 year old is going to have …I don’t know …60 years, maybe more?, where they are able to keep studying Japanese, where as if you start at 80, you are only going to get so far before you …umm, you die.  

So it is easy to look at this say you can’t learn when you are old, and this is simply not true. If we could live until 120, a 60 year old would have 60 years to also master Japanese to the same level as the 10 year old spending 60 years on it.

However, the rate at which you learn is not always increasing at the same pace. Look at your own language, you spent the first few years rapidly improving, until you where about 10, and then you where “fluent” …you then went to secondary and added to your vocabulary, but probably not at the same rate …then after the age of 20, how much has your ability in the language increase or changed? Probably not that much, the reality is that you have reached your peak by this point and just stayed at this level.

This can happen with Japanese too and really the only advantage to starting younger is you will hit this peak at a younger age.  

It Does Get Harder The Older You Get

While I have said age doesn’t matter, this is more about the linguistic processing ability in the brain …the reality is that things will get harder as you age and that is simply down to your responsibilities.

If you want to learn Japanese, you need to sit down and study it and this just gets harder the older you get.

Life will get in the way and in general, the older you are, the more responsibilities you will have.

Work, kids, family and friends and whatever other social stuff you do is all crying out for your time and it can seem like you just don’t have enough hours in the day …so where exactly are you supposed to squeeze in thousands of hours of study?

When you look at any youtube video of someone doing the extreme Japanese immersion, where they basically spend all their waking hours immersed in Japanese …they are young. Don’t take that as me hating on them, it’s just a reality. They are usually high school kids or college students and basically they can get away with sitting there all day watching anime.    

If anything, I am jealous, I wish I spent my youth on something actually productive like this, rather than squandering it on video games and alcohol. The kids who do this are taking full advantage of their lack of responsibilities and I think more should be doing this.

Your Native Language Can Get In The Way

You could also argue that the older you get, the more your native language will get in the way. I think this really is true for anyone who is over the age of 10.

If you are young kid, you just kind of absorb the language on a subconscious level very quickly, once you get into your teenage years, your native language kind of gets in the way.

You will want to translate things back and forth to sort of prove to yourself that you understand what is going on, and this is not an efficient way to do things. 

The older you get, the more engrained your native language becomes and the more likely it is to get in the way.

This isn’t the end of the world, you can certainly still overcome this, especially if it is pointed out to you, but I do think this is one of the disadvantages of trying to learn at an older age.

It will just take a little more effort to ignore that conscious voice in your head that is questioning everything and constantly comparing things to your native language.

(You can read more about – Will Learning A New Language Affect Your Native Language?)

Brain Degeneration

The only time age is an issue is when you start to develop some sort of brain degeneration, which is of course going to inhibit your learning capacity.

This does seem like a growing problem, but I still think it is quite rare as such. Most of us have healthy brains and can still learn …but some of us will develop illnesses like dementia or similar at some point in our lives.

However, when this happens I feel learning Japanese will not really be something we are worried about, we will have more important things to deal with.

So, I wouldn’t worry about this. So long as you are healthy, you can learn Japanese.

(You can read more about – Why Learning A Language Is Good For Your Brain)

Going To Learn In Japan

A lot of people will suggest that the best way to really get to grips with Japanese is to go to Japan and study it.

This is still at option at any age. There is no age limit and you will hear people who have been to Language School in Japan who say they had students in their class who were in their 60s or similar, so it does happen.

However, the reality is that the older you get the harder this becomes. This again comes back to life tying us down with responsibilities and not everyone can just pack up and move to the other side of the world to study a language …but if you can find a way to make it work, it is an option for you.    

Conclusion

Hopefully now you can see that age is just a number. It doesn’t matter how old you are, if you want to learn Japanese, there is nothing stopping you.

There is no real magic skill required, just good old fashion time and effort, so don’t try and say you are too old, just get started.

(If you are looking to learn Japanese, you can follow my plan –  Learn Japanese – The Plan For A Complete Beginner)