A common question is whether there is an optimal acquisition window for mastering a second language. Obviously, adults and even elderly adults are able to learn new languages, but differences in aptitude and mastery are typically attributable to aptitude for language mastery. Some researchers even believe that adolescents and adults actually have an advantage over young children in language learning, due to stronger cognitive abilities.

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Some have argued that the most ideal age range for acquiring a second language is between 8 and 12 years old, when cognition is more developed, but ease of adapting new phonologies ( language sounds) and learning new vocabulary is still significantly more pronounced than for an adult.  Additionally, children in the 8 to 12 range are much less likely to rely so strictly on the rules of their first language to formulate the second.

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That being said, there seems to be no real evidence that age itself is an impediment to learning a second language, though some data seems to suggest otherwise, especially for languages that are very dissimilar. For instance, native Chinese speakers who start going to school in the US tend to become much more proficient in English if they are immersed before the age of nine. If immersion occurs after this age, these children tend to retain Chinese as their dominant language and never become as proficient in English as the younger learners. This age difference is much less of a factor, however, when the two systems share similar linguistic roots, as is the case with many European languages.