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I have some experience on both sides of the issue. On the one hand I learned Dutch and Danish growing up. English and German I picked up from television and reading comic books. Czech I learned at age 28 and now that I'm 33 I'm close to but not 100% fluent. Besides these languages I can speak a number of languages to a fair extent. I can easily understand Norwegian and Swedish and I speak them with an accent. French I had for four years in school and I can get by. While I lived in Israel I tried Hebrew, but I didn't get far. In school I also had Greek and Latin, but I never mastered those languages. At the moment I'm trying to get to a decent level speaking Spanish, Italian, Slovak and Russian. So far I'm hopeful.

My Job is teaching languages. to be precise I teach Dutch, Danish, English and German in Prague. I have taught both adults and children ranging basically from 6 to 60. I also worked as a translator, a translation editor an interpretor and a textbook writer. Those are my credentials, here are what I consider the best techniques for leaning languages.

At different ages people use different techniques to learn languages. It takes a child about two years to be able to communicate. Funnily enough it doesn't matter if the child learns one two or three languages. As a matter of fact learning more languages at a young age teaches the brain not only the language but also the process of learning languages. If you can expose your child to speakers of different languages when young, do so. Even if they forget some of the languages the language learning skill will stay with them.

Typically the two-year rule for leaning languages seems to hold true also when people are older. Of course people can learn to speak the language in a controlled way before that. But the break-through moment where you finally feel you can speak and understand the language unconsciously comes between a year and a half and two years of committed study.

What exactly comprises committed study? For me it means an all round approach to the language. You can't really learn a language by taking a class once a week. You need to expose yourself to the language every day. Until it no longer seems unfamiliar. Until every sound has a place in your ear and on your lips.

The older people get the more in control they want to be. Older students always ask me why something is expressed a certain way. They waste time. Children don't ask about the whys. Children just repeat. They connect words and sentences to

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