Teaching English makes me aware of the importance of age when it comes to language acquisition.

Today, as I was teaching a four-year-old Japanese girl, I noticed she was able to replicate, flawlessly, the first time, whatever word I spoke to her. No comprehension, obviously, but she spoke with perfect pronunciation. She sounded like a native English speaker.

At my junior high school I am helping the students prepare for an English speech contest. One boy, who has already gone through puberty, was having trouble with the “r” sound. I would say a word to him with an “r” sound, and he would repeat it back to me; he did not improve at all despite ample time. At the end of the lesson he sounded exactly the same. After he left I tried the same thing with a girl who was a bit younger. At first her pronunciation was a bit strange, but after a few repetitions she improved dramatically. It was eye opening.

Yesterday I tried explaining the two animals in, “Duck, Duck, Goose!” by saying that they were both 鳥. The Japanese teachers did not understand my Japanese. I have lived in Japan for over a year and I still cannot properly say a simple two-syllable word. I think I am just too old. I am already 26. Is attempting to learn how to speak Japanese like a native going to be an exercise in futility?

the answer is NO. most important thing is "kbo" as churchill put it: keep buggering on!

It is definitely much harder but definitely possible. Chinese and Japanese are so different it takes time to get that breakthrough and you start getting frustrated, but you will hit the point where suddenly the improvements flood in. I'm 27 and have been studying Chinese full time for 6 months. To begin with I thought it was impossible, but now I'm starting to see the improvements.

I would said it is next to impossible to sound like a native but it is totally possible to make your self understood and sound fluent. Pronouncing one phoneme is not difficult as long as you know what do to with you month and tongue. Joining them together in real speech and put the right intonation in is another story.

There is a famous story of a man from Mexico who learnt his first language at 27 years old (http://neuroanthropology.net/2010/07/21/life-without-language/). If he did that at 27 then hells yeah you can learn a 2nd at 26 :P

The whole "you can't learn a language after you 10" theory is silly and even the experts doesn't agree on it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period_hypothesis#Second_language_acquisition ). I started Chinese at 28 having never studied a foreign language before and now have a fine time chatting to my 岳父和岳母 in mandarin. I certainly don't sound native, and I doubt I shall ever be without an accent but conveying meaning is not a problem (my problem currently is not spending enough time on vocab so I can say words just fine I simply don't know enough of them to talk about any subject).

Find/pay someone who can explain the right tongue positions and vocalisation then practise till your head falls off :D you may never become completely accent-less but barring speech impediments and brain injury there isn't any reason you can't be understood without issue.

And while I don't like everything Benny says you can't fault his enthusiasm and results: http://www.fluentin3months.com/adults-vs-kids/

Of all the replies, so far, I agree most with 戴金霸.

Young age do make it easier to learn a language but it does not make it impossible if you are older. I am almost twice the age of you and even if it naturally takes longer time and my pronunciation never will be absolutely native i do make steady progress. My daughter started at age 6 and she picked up native level of spoken Chinese in one year. I will never do that and the main reason for that is that i spend to much time thinking about why and how. She only absorbs and have no clue about the history behind characters, what word class it is or what grammar rule that apply. That shift to stop simply listening starts at around 7 and that seems to be the fact with her as well. I live in Japan as well and I have several friends here that started with Japanese in their late 20:th and they all are on an level that my Japanese friends call native like. So yes, with hard work and a native surrounding you can be more or less native like in Japanese as well. Truly native is possible but very few ever achieve it.

When I was studying Spanish in Guatemala there was a guy in his 70's who had suffered a stroke and spoke with noticeable slurring. His doctors had advised him to study a foreign language as a form of therapy, so there he was in Spanish school struggling along and making slow but undeniable progress. So even if I don't have the language powers of a four-year-old (I'm quite a bit older than you, icecream) I figure if that guy can make progress with hard work, so can I.

James

It is silly to say you are too old. I am 69 and achieved reasonable facility and fluency in conversational Mandarin studying ten hours a week for about two years. I will never be mistaken for a native but of course that was never the object and I could care less. I can go anywhere in China and make my way easily, meet people, have discussions, and conduct basic business without fear. Now with Skritter I am tackling the written language and expect that it will take me another few years to match my conversational ability with reading and writing skills.

@Tedtick, out of curiosity, how did you distribute those 10 hours a week? Long periods on the weekend and short reviews during the week?

I started learning Mandarin at age 25. I spent a number of months concentrating primarily on pronunciation. I kept repeating after recordings, reading Sammy Diagrams, asking other learners how they learned some of the sounds (in particular, I learned how to make the yu/xu/qu vowel sound from a French teacher). It took me about a year to reach the point where I was complimented on the accuracy of my pinyin reading by native speakers. Of course everything else, vocabulary, listening, reading, writing, took a backseat during this time, but it pays off later on when people understand what you're trying to say.

Lechuan has a good point there. I think pronunciation is the most important thing and the next one is vocap.

In most cases if you can blurt out relevant words in perfect pronunciation, native speakers will understand you.
Admitted that it is a burden to listeners but they will be able to understand you. If you speak grammatically perfect sentences with really bad pronunciation they will find it really hard to understand.

When I started learning English I had the need to be able to comprehend text books really quickly. I throw pronunciation and grammar out of the window and keep buggering on with the text books. I still pay the price until today.

One of the most famous translators of Chinese novels into English - Howard Goldblatt - didn't start learning Chinese until he was a similar age to you, so you have no excuse!

Olaf:
When I found myself living in Shanghai and wanted to start on the language (I didn't know how to say "NiHao" when I stepped off the plane) I went on the internet and found five very inexpensive free-lance Mandarin tutors and started lessons with each of them, slowly letting go of four of them until I had selected someone that I liked and was comfortable with and that had fabulous training for the task. I spent 90 minutes a day with her five days a week in totally relaxed and unstructured conversation and tutoring and then practiced using various other tools (ChinesePod, Pimsleur tapes, conversations on the street, etc) for the rest of the time. My tutor made short recordings of words as we went along and I made these into pinyin flashcards. I made the decision I would not worry about characters or writing and just focused on speaking. I wish Skritter had been available at the time as it would have made a big difference. But no matter, I'm here now and happily chipping away at it. I have no crushing need to learn more, just enjoy the challenge. Who would have thought that in my 70s I can learn to read and write Chinese. Not me, that's for sure.

Never too old.

I'd venture to guess that if any of us actually imitated how a child learns, we would pick up language just as quickly.

They learn 24-7, and are fearless and utterly persistent at using language at every opportunity to connect and communicate with people.

Very different from the behavior of grown ups learning language. I know I don't put in even remotely that level of effort, I spend more time than I should on reading and other solitary activities. If I spent all day every day trying to speak then am willing to bet that I'd get pretty good in pretty short order.