{"id":1239,"date":"2013-07-24T08:15:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T12:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/?p=1239"},"modified":"2020-10-02T14:06:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T18:06:18","slug":"my-late-life-language-learning-part-1-over-70s-can-learn-a-language-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/2013\/07\/24\/my-late-life-language-learning-part-1-over-70s-can-learn-a-language-too\/","title":{"rendered":"My Late-Life Language Learning, Part 1: Over-70s Can Learn a Language Too!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>At over 70-years-old, Richard G. Mills has done a little bit of everything. For more than 30 years, Mills has been the Managing Principal and an owner of Consulting Services, a small consultancy that assists large corporations to strategically exploit information technology. Prior to founding Consulting Services, Mills’ joined Citibank as Vice President and de facto CIO. \u00a0Mills also spent fourteen years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, acquiring three degrees while serving as a member of the faculty and directing the campus computing facilities. Between his stints at MIT, Mills’ adventures ranged from working with a software start-up to serving three years in the U.S. Air Force.\u00a0<\/em>A self-proclaimed “old, retired guy”, Mills is now on to his latest adventure: learning French.<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of information out there \u2013 scientifically-based and otherwise \u2013 about the decline of one\u2019s learning ability with increasing age, and a lot of it is true.\u00a0 Language-learning ability is probably (folks still argue about this) at its best in very young children, who seem to have a short-lived special ability to acquire language.\u00a0 But that disappears quickly, and we\u2019re left with the more usual variety of learning ability \u2013 and that is the ability that fades slowly, beginning maybe in the \u2018teens or twenties, through the rest of adult life.<\/p>\n

I knew all that, but I didn\u2019t much care; I went ahead and learned a lot of French anyway.\u00a0 So I am a sort of \u201cliving proof\u201d that an old retired guy can learn a new language.\u00a0 That is, I am<\/strong> an old, semi-retired guy, and I have<\/strong> learned and continue to learn enough of a new language to get along pretty well in it.<\/p>\n

So, QED \u2013 an old dog can learn a new trick\u2026or a new language.<\/p>\n

Using what I\u2019ve learned I can read the headlines on the website of the Paris daily paper, Le Figaro<\/em>. If I find an article in it that interests me, I can click on a link and read the full story, and with great comprehension, too, recognizing well over 90% of the words I encounter.\u00a0 It is true, though, that when I try reading Victor Hugo\u2019s \u201cThe Hunchback of Notre Dame\u201d in the original French, I do need to have handy a good French dictionary.\u00a0 But Victor Hugo is a tough test, even for many native French speakers!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve started trying to get to Paris maybe once a year, to check out my progress in the language.\u00a0 My wife and I live there, like the locals, for a month or so, and in our daily lives \u2013 at the caf\u00e9, in the restaurants, at the market, on the M\u00e9tro \u2013 I have discovered that I really do get along fine in the language.\u00a0 Can a local who sprays rapid-fire \u201cstreet French\u201d at me still leave me in the dust? \u00a0You bet he (or more often, she!) can.\u00a0 But all of them \u2013 these are great people \u2013 are happy to slow down and say it again, and when they do that, I\u2019m back to getting along just fine.<\/p>\n

Was it easy? Is<\/strong> it easy to learn a new language?\u00a0 Some gym instructor once said, \u201cIf you want to tighten up them abs, you gotta do them crunches!\u201d<\/p>\n

And well, sorry, but there are \u201ccrunches\u201d involved in learning a language, too \u2013 each new word you learn is another crunch, and let\u2019s just say it takes a lot of crunches to get those abs to show.\u00a0 You have to be able to recognize these new words orally and in print, and you have to be able to write and speak them \u2013 correctly.\u00a0 And \u201cwriting them correctly,\u201d in French, means with<\/strong> all those funny little diacritical marks that make the difference between \u201cor\u201d (ou<\/em>) and \u201cwhere\u201d (o\u00f9<\/em>).<\/p>\n

So you see?\u00a0 An old retired guy, who for prior language training has had only two semesters of high-school Latin, really can learn a new language.\u00a0 Doing it has been a bit of a journey, and I\u2019m going to try to tell you something about what it\u2019s been, and continues to be, like.<\/p>\n

So, stay tuned\u2026<\/p>\n

\u00c0 bient\u00f4t!<\/em><\/p>\n

Continue the journey in Part 2<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

At over 70-years-old, Richard G. Mills has done a little bit of everything. For more than 30 years, Mills has been the Managing Principal and an owner of Consulting Services, a small consultancy that assists large corporations to strategically exploit information technology. Prior to founding Consulting Services, Mills’ joined Citibank as Vice President and de…<\/p>\n

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