I'm 54, monolingual English, and my son's in-laws speak no English at all. I can put in 90 minutes a day, five days a week, and I'd like to hold my end of a dinner table in about two years. Every article I read tells me the window closed decades ago. I don't care about sounding native — I want to be understood and to follow a fast table without my wife translating.
I started Norwegian at 61 and passed the B1 exam two years later, so I'll say the obvious thing: it's not your brain. What degrades with age is your tolerance for feeling stupid in front of people, and that's a habit you can rebuild. The first six months I was the oldest person in every class and I hated it. Two years later I was the one holding conversations while the twenty-year-olds were still worried about being wrong.
This matches what I see teaching adults. In the first six months the fifty-year-olds usually outperform the teenagers badly, because they already know what a subjunctive is and they actually do the homework. The gap the research talks about shows up much later and mostly in places you said you don't care about.
The age findings people wave around are largely about eventual native-like grammar and accent, neither of which you asked for. The constraint I'd actually watch at 54 is hearing. Fast overlapping speech in a noisy room is the hardest listening condition there is, and if you already lose threads in a busy English restaurant, that will be your ceiling rather than your Italian. Worth mentioning to your GP and getting a proper test rather than assuming it's the language.
My wasted year went on material designed for children — cartoons, colours, animals, endless fruit vocabulary. It felt productive because it was easy. What I needed from month one was adult listening I only half understood, and short scripted things I could say out loud. Don't spend a year being comfortable.
Two years is enough for what you described. Listening first, speaking second, grammar last. The in-laws will meet you most of the way once they see you trying.
@gramgrader_gus · 2mo ago · 2 replies
Do the arithmetic before you worry about the neuroscience. The Foreign Service Institute hour estimates that get quoted put Italian in their easiest group for English speakers, in the region of 600 to 750 classroom hours to reach professional working proficiency — and that's intensive, full-time, with trained instructors and homework on top. Your 90 minutes five days a week is about 375 hours a year, so two years lands you in that band on paper. You'll be slower than an FSI student because you're not immersed, but 'slower than a diplomat in a full-time program' is a perfectly good place to be for a dinner table.
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@back_of_envelope · 2mo ago
1.5 hours × 5 days × 50 weeks = 375 hours a year, so 750 over two. Worth noting half of those hours should be listening if the goal is following a fast table — table conversation is a listening problem long before it's a speaking one.
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