Can You Learn Your Mother Tongue as an Adult?

“I’m f***ing 35. I need to learn. I need to know Hindi,” Shivan Bhavnani, an investor, told The Juggernaut. “It’s not cute anymore.” Bhavnani had grown up with the uncomfortable feeling that he was behind: his parents, who are fluent in Hindi and Sindhi, didn’t speak either with him. “You just felt very out of place,” he added. Decades later, Bhavnani took matters into his own hands, recently deciding to learn the languages himself. 

He’s not alone. The Juggernaut spoke to several language learners who are diving into online learning platforms like Duolingo and Rosetta Stone, pressing their parents for lessons, creating their own immersion programs, and learning songs. But if you didn’t learn your mother tongue as a child, can you actually recover it when you’re older?