I think one of the problems is that many people know about this child super power and then give up. OTH, I live in Italy which is full of adult African immigrants, and they all speak Italian.
The fact is any adult can learn any language, they just either don’t have to or don’t want to. I’m not saying it’s easy or it’s the best decision for every situation, but it’s definitely possible. This is true even more so if it’s a popular language with a lot of resources to learn it, and you live in the country where practice is virtually free.
I don't want to be too presumptuous here but my understanding is there are a lot of desperate broke African immigrants finding their way into Italy.
In such a situation you would be forced to rapidly acquire the language to survive, move on somewhere else, or possibly resort to crime because you are unable to communicate to secure a job (which <should> rapidly leads to expulsion from the country). Bad learners get tossed into the last 2 bins, and thus unseen.
Comparatively if white American hacker guy shows up flush with tech cash there's really not much chance I'm going to find myself on police radar or starve not learning the language, even if I'm there for an extended period and even if there illegally.
Probably, but I don't think it challenges the legitimacy of the original point at all.
> Comparatively if white American hacker guy shows up flush with tech cash [...] not much chance I'm going to find myself on police radar or starve not learning the language
The fact is any adult can learn any language, they just either don’t have to or don’t want to. I’m not saying it’s easy or it’s the best decision for every situation, but it’s definitely possible. This is true even more so if it’s a popular language with a lot of resources to learn it, and you live in the country where practice is virtually free.