We lose the ability to naturally discern subtle differences in consonant and vowel sounds beyond an age, but it is totally incorrect to suggest you can't "learn" them later.
If you're simply trying to discern the sounds in a language you can become arbitrarily good at the task (as in, your ability to discern the sounds used in a language scale with time spent invested practicing it, up until well after you exceed the capacity of a typical native).
The issue is that most foreign language learners never spend that amount of time and often learn to speak before they learn to listen/understand. This causes them to permanently ingrain their incorrect pronunciation. What everyone else is left with is the illusion that complete 2nd language acquisition is impossible, but this is just wrong.
SinnPacked t1_j4htlll wrote
Reply to comment by percautio in What it means to “know” a language by thenousman
We lose the ability to naturally discern subtle differences in consonant and vowel sounds beyond an age, but it is totally incorrect to suggest you can't "learn" them later.
If you're simply trying to discern the sounds in a language you can become arbitrarily good at the task (as in, your ability to discern the sounds used in a language scale with time spent invested practicing it, up until well after you exceed the capacity of a typical native).
The issue is that most foreign language learners never spend that amount of time and often learn to speak before they learn to listen/understand. This causes them to permanently ingrain their incorrect pronunciation. What everyone else is left with is the illusion that complete 2nd language acquisition is impossible, but this is just wrong.