There are a number of commonly held beliefs about age. Some people say that children learn languages faster than adults do. They talk of children who appear to pick up new languages effortlessly. Perhaps this has something to do with the plasticity of a young brain. Something, after all, must account for the fact that with language, according to Steven Pinker, ‘acquisition… is guaranteed for children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly after puberty, and is rare thereafter’ (Pinker 1994: 293), and that applies not only to the acquisition of the first language, but also to second or foreign languages.