To those who haven't, I wholeheartedly recommend learning another language. I think it's one of the most important things you can do for your mind—I believe it truly changes the way you think on a fundamental level.
Sometimes, when I tell people this, they argue that they're "too old" to learn a new language. When they do, I tell them the following story.
I was in Berlin this March, and I met a Belgian who spoke 6 or 7 languages fluently (as many Belgians apparently do). I was currently on "vacation" from a semester abroad in Italy, where I was taking an intro Italian class and really enjoying it so far. I mentioned this to the Belgian, but I expressed my concern that I was too old to become fluent:
"You can't learn new languages properly once you're my age."
He scoffed. "Sure you can. You just have to open your mind!"
That line stuck with me. Now, it may or may not be true that your brain can't fully "accept" new languages past a certain stage in your development, but that's not the point. The point is that I believed that I couldn't, and that belief was actively discouraging my progress. So I followed the Belgian's advice: I stopped telling myself I was too old, I went out of my way to speak the language, and I pushed myself harder to become conversational. By the end of the semester, I'd achieved that. (I'm by no means fluent, but I'd like to live there again soon with fluency as a goal.)
I do wish that I'd started earlier, because I've uncovered a real passion and knack for languages that I didn't know I'd had. But—perhaps contrary to popular belief—it's never too late to start.
(As an aside, I found it interesting that after just three months, I spoke Italian better than I spoke German after three years of high school classes. I attribute this partly to actually living in Italy, but also to a broken language learning system in our public education. But that may be a comment for another day.)
I met a Belgian who spoke 6 or 7 languages fluently (as many Belgians apparently do)
I've been many times to Belgium and never knew anyone talking more than 4 languages. Of course that's not a rule, but "just" French, Dutch and German (residual) are official languages. In Wallonia (French-speaking regions), many people don't speak Dutch and there are a lot of people who just talk _some_ English (not to mention the difficulty to pronounce some sound).
Sometimes, when I tell people this, they argue that they're "too old" to learn a new language. When they do, I tell them the following story.
I was in Berlin this March, and I met a Belgian who spoke 6 or 7 languages fluently (as many Belgians apparently do). I was currently on "vacation" from a semester abroad in Italy, where I was taking an intro Italian class and really enjoying it so far. I mentioned this to the Belgian, but I expressed my concern that I was too old to become fluent:
"You can't learn new languages properly once you're my age."
He scoffed. "Sure you can. You just have to open your mind!"
That line stuck with me. Now, it may or may not be true that your brain can't fully "accept" new languages past a certain stage in your development, but that's not the point. The point is that I believed that I couldn't, and that belief was actively discouraging my progress. So I followed the Belgian's advice: I stopped telling myself I was too old, I went out of my way to speak the language, and I pushed myself harder to become conversational. By the end of the semester, I'd achieved that. (I'm by no means fluent, but I'd like to live there again soon with fluency as a goal.)
I do wish that I'd started earlier, because I've uncovered a real passion and knack for languages that I didn't know I'd had. But—perhaps contrary to popular belief—it's never too late to start.
(As an aside, I found it interesting that after just three months, I spoke Italian better than I spoke German after three years of high school classes. I attribute this partly to actually living in Italy, but also to a broken language learning system in our public education. But that may be a comment for another day.)