Becoming fluent in a second language is difficult. But for adults, is it impossible?
Science says no.
In this encore episode, Short Wave host Emily Kwong dissects the "critical period hypothesis," a theory which linguists have been debating for decades — with the help of Sarah Frances Phillips, a Ph.D. student in the linguistics department at New York University. Together, Emily and former Short Wave host Maddie Sofia explore where the theory comes from, how it applies to second-language acquisition and what it means for Emily's efforts to learn Mandarin Chinese as an adult.
Have a linguistics or neuroscience question? Email us at shortwave@npr.org — we'd love to hear from you!
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This episode was produced by Thomas Lu, edited by Viet Le and fact-checked by Indi Khera. Alex Drewenskus was the audio engineer.
Special thanks to sociolinguist Amelia Tseng, Fluent City, Dennis Yeuh-Ye Li, Megan Arias, and the Kwong family, especially Christopher, Timothy, Linda and Amanda Kwong.
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