Breaking News English

New [research / researcher] from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) [suggests / suggestive] that if people want to [archive / achieve] native-like proficiency in a new language, they should start learning that language [afore / before] the age of ten. The researchers added that children up to the age of 17 or 18 remain [adapt / adept] at learning grammar. There is bad news for those who want to pick up a [new / newly] language [beyond / behind] their late teens. The researchers say this is past the "critical period" when language-learning ability starts to [recline / decline] . Researcher Joshua Hartshorne said: "As far as a child is concerned, it's quite [easily / easy] to become bilingual....That's when you're best at learning languages. It's not really something that you can make [down / up] later."

The research was based [in / on] an analysis of results from a 10-minute online grammar quiz. Over 670,000 language learners [of / for] all ages participated [on / in] the test. Researchers measured the [grammatically / grammatical] ability of people who started learning a language at different points [in / on] their life. Professor Hartshorne focused on grammar rules that were most likely to confuse a non-native speaker as a [gouge / gauge] of that person's proficiency. MIT researcher Josh Tenenbaum suggested people simply might be too [busy / busily] to learn a language [later / latter] in life. He said: "After 17 or 18, you leave home, you work full time, or you become a specialized university student. All of these might [impact / compact] your learning rate for [any / many] language."