Precerpt from My 20th Language: Aging - Assumptions, Myth, and Reality

Aging is not a footnote in my linguistic life—it’s the headline. In my seventh decade, I’ve noticed the shifts: slower retrieval, occasional delays, the need to kick out inappropriate words from other languages before the right one surfaces. But I’ve also noticed something else: the scaffolding holds. The foundation of more than a dozen languages, decades of professional memory work, and a lifetime of linguistic adaptation still supports new acquisition—even when the brain is 73 years old.

🧠 Memory Challenges and Multilingual Compensation

Yes, recall is harder now. I feel the delay when I’m not in the right cultural context. I sometimes reach for a word and find three others from unrelated languages elbowing their way forward. But I also know how to filter, sort, and retrieve, because I’ve done it for decades. My memory banks are full—not just with vocabulary, but with patterns, structures, and strategies. That’s what makes new learning possible.

🌍 The Indonesian Challenge

Late last year, I learned that the U.S. Department of State wanted to send me to Indonesia as an English Language Specialist. I’d be helping institutions with their English needs—something I’d done in more than two dozen countries. But I knew I’d need the local language for comfort. Not for the job, necessarily, but for my own sense of orientation and respect.

I had six weeks to learn Indonesian. No programs. No teachers. No speakers nearby. Just me, my household, and a tight schedule. If I had more than two hours a day to teach myself, I was thrilled. I used authentic materials—online articles, news clips, and language apps (though all of them moved too slowly for me). My brain was old, yes. But it was trained. I stuffed dozens, sometimes hundreds, of new words into my storage banks daily. Once I understood the structure of Indonesian, I could punch in scores of related words with ease.

🗣️ Arrival and Activation

At home, I had no one to practice with. But once I arrived in Indonesia, I found conversational partners everywhere. Hotel staff were delighted to speak Bahasa with me. I watched the news on TV. I had zero age-related retrieval delays, likely because I was immersed in the cultural environment where Bahasa was the default.

On my first day, a senior administrator showed me around the institution. We were speaking English—until a cat crossed our path. Without thinking, I asked, “Kucingmu?” (“Is it your cat?”). He was surprised, then delighted. From that moment, Bahasa became part of my daily rhythm—except, of course, with those I was helping to improve their English.

My assistant consultant, younger by a couple decades, hadn’t learned Bahasa in advance. She often relied on me in the native environment. We had an interpreter during work hours, which allowed my assistant to function with only English, since the interpreter acted as interference, guide, and explainer-in-chief for our interactions with institutional personnel, which often included dealing with security personnel and directing drivers.

Once the interpreter realized that I could handle communication in Bahasa, he preferred texting me in his own language. I welcomed it. More culturally appropriate, natural-communication practice! Moreover, being an interpreter, he could explain grammar and lexical properties to me when I did not understand something, fostering a greater blossoming of language.

Then, one morning, the text read: “I am sick today; you will need to serve as interpreter.” No problem.

For more posts about language learning, click HERE.

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