This March, I started learning guitar. Well actually, I had learned guitar when I was 13 or 14 years old, but for a very short time, like one or two months.

This time, I was very enthusiastic: finally, I have time and money to learn a musical instrument, as I always feel ashamed of how I’m “illiterate” in music and always admire people who can play musical instruments.

What surprised me at first, however, it’s some comments from the teachers, about the fact that I’m an old learner, especially compared to my young “classmates” of 10 or 15 years old – half or one third of my age. This reminds me of how comments like “children learn faster than adults” irritate me.

I think that it’s one of the common sayings that people repeat all over again, without really questioning whether it’s correct or not. How many times do you see an adult saying “oh, children adapt fast” talking about a child, and saying “oh, I’m too old to [learn a new language or some other new thing]” ? Is it true or it’s just an excuse?

When I think about my own experience, I think I forgot most of the things that I’d learned at school: poems, history, maths, etc. Some rare things that are still useful for me are: songs that I remember, French, English, some very basic maths and let’s say, the analytical/critical thinking.

Let’s take French, that I’ve been learning for 24 years now, as an example. I still don’t have a perfect French, I still make a lot of mistakes. Moreover, I know that many friends of mine, who studied French for 12 years since their 6 years old, then after some years not practicing, forgot the language already. What a low ROI (return on investment)!

Even for native speakers, it takes them hard work to master their own language! 8 year-old-children have limited level in their mother tongue, even though they’ve been learning 16 hours a day for 8 years!

Once I’ve understood that learning anything takes time and hard work, even for children, I finally understood why I should not compare my language with the native speakers’. Nothing comes “naturally” and it’s not about being a native speaker versus being a foreigner, it’s not about your gene or family/culture/background or anything that seems that vague. It’s very concrete and logical: if you spend 18 years studying something 16 hours a DAY, you will do it much better than if you spend 16 hours a WEEK for 12 years. It’s the case for anything, not only language.

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I think the point is we are more indulgent toward children. I remember my friend being amazed on how his newborn has learned to digest food, to eat, to sleep, to cry, etc. while he didn’t do much. Why do we find very simple things that babies do such fantastic, and in the meantime, underestimate all the effort of the parents: they have to adapt their daily life, learn how to take care of a human being, etc. ?

Children represent the future, we think they have time. We forgot how much time we spent and how we struggled studying. Children represent hope, and we project them to persevere. We forgot things that we started to learn then gave up.

However, I think it’s true to say that generally children have more time, in the present time (not about the remaining years before dying). For adults, we spend at least 10 hours per day at work. Then when we come back home, we have to take care of our family, do housework. We only have a few hours in the evening or on the weekend for hobbies. For children, if they want to do sports, play music, learn a new language, they (their parents) can manage to find a class between 9AM and 5PM.

People usually say that children have more facility to learn as the brain keeps growing. I would not discuss this biological aspect. I think however that adults have methods, and good methods are like shortcuts to learn faster. When I prepared for my university entrance, I knew a girl who had started learning French at 18 y.o. She had spent the whole year, only studying French (no school nor work). After one year and a half, she was as good as me after 12 years studying French! With focus, good methods (and time), you can do amazing things.

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Back to my guitar learning topic, I’ve enjoying it so far. I appreciate small things like the day I can read the musical notes, the first piece of music I can play, etc. I think I’ve been further than I had been 15 years ago. I try to cherish all the little steps that I’ve achieved, I try to nourish my motivation. It’s the most important thing: do not give up.

My mother started using the computer at 55. My 85-year-old father use Facebook with ease. I think I CAN NOT say I’m too old to learn to play the guitar 🙂