It’s Never Too Late To Learn: 80 Year-Old Man Proves Language Learning Has No Age Limit

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Do you think you are too old to start studying English, or any other language? Maybe your parents or grandparents have always wanted to learn English but thought that their time had passed.

Do you really think that once you have reached a certain age it becomes impossible to learn a new language?

Don’t give up (quit) so quickly guys, nothing is impossible. As long as you have a good attitude and the confidence, independent of your age you can achieve anything, even new languages. Thanks to Kaplan International we can see a perfect example of this.

This 80 year-old lawyer, Samuel Malheiros from Vitoria, Brazil, decided to pack his suitcase and head over to Oxford to start learning English at one of Kaplan’s English language schools. Many people thought that he was crazy to think he could start learning a new language at such an age, but Samuel had made up his mind and was excited to share his story with the world.

Let’s take a look at Samuel’s English learning adventure.

Malheiros says, “I always had an interest in analytical philosophy, which is very appreciated in Anglo-Saxon countries and I wanted to have the ability to be part of that as well.”

His family was surprised when Samuel announced that he was going back to school at 80 years of age, but admired and supported his initiative to travel abroad and learn a new language.

According to Malheiros, he had studied English in the past but never got the chance to “do it for real” and practice speaking continuously.

He said: “During my studying and while participating in the school’s social activities, I’ve made friends at Kaplan from all over the world. Being in the same school with students of different nationalities means we have to speak English with each other all the time. It’s challenging and I enjoy it.”

School principal, Sean Ahern, said that Samuel became very popular around young students and that he was able to make lots of friends by sharing his life experience through the common language of English for the first time.

Malheiros is very determined to succeed in his new life goal so he has extended his stay at Kaplan’s Oxford school for a few more weeks.

“My journey will not end here. When I finish studying I plan to continue traveling around the world and keep on speaking and learning English,” he said.

This information was taken from the original blog post from Kaplan International

If you enjoyed this post, take a look at past RLE posts with Kaplan illustrations that can really help you learn English expressions in a colourful and interesting way.

  • Taoufik Essadiki El Filali says:

    Amazing Story of a Brazilian 80 years old student !!
    It’s Never Too Late To Learn .. BINGO!!

  • Uau! That's great!
    Age is REALLY just a NUMBER.

  • Uau! That's great!
    Age is REALLY just a NUMBER.

  • Iago Bojczuk says:

    I remember once I had to teach a 79- year-old man as well and it was a very rewarding experience to me as a teacher.

  • Iago Bojczuk says:

    I remember once I had to teach a 79- year-old man as well and it was a very rewarding experience to me as a teacher.

  • Iago, you're the man!

  • edith homan says:

    That answered my question to say you are too old to learn as others have told me that it’s too late to learn
    I put my hand up for this gentleman that took the courage