- Any language teacher will tell you, some people can spend literally years immersed in their L2 culture, taking classes, and working their butts off to improve their abilities, and still have limited language skills. Even allowing that some languages, like English, are weird and difficult to learn, learning any new language after childhood is really sodding hard. Given this, it annoys me how adult characters in Carey's books speak new tongues like a native after a few weeks of teaching and never, ever encounter difficulties in trying to communicate no matter where in the world they go. Carey stretches it with Phedre, who we were explicitly told had a lot of linguistic training as a child and an excellent memory; she absolutely breaks it with Moirin, who was completely illiterate until just before puberty and didn't even know other languages existed until she was in her early teens.
- A couple of things: All three characters started learning new languages early on. For Imriel and Phedre it was about ten and Moirin about sixteen or so. So both Imriel and Phedre did start learning new languages during childhood and, it should be noted, are the ones that they are most fluent in. While both learn more, something easier to do for additional languages beyond the second, they're almost never described as speaking like a native. For all three to learn, communication does start out with difficultly, often takes a fair amount of time (which is, admittedly, often glossed over.
- Sixteen is not childhood, especially not for these purposes. That's the whole point about complaints that high school is too late to start effective language training. However, people who've learned multiple languages when young are often much better at picking up languages later in life, so Phedre (and Imriel whom she would have given as much of the same training as possible) have some excuse.
- There are multiple references to difficulties even with languages they are fairly familiar with. In Dobrek, Phedre can scrape by in basic exchanges with people who are making an effort to communicate clearly, but she still can’t follow conversations at full speed. She can’t speak Dalridian when she’s hung over. She struggles with conversational dialects of languages she’s only learned on paper. Despite speaking Caerdicci fluently, she needs a translator for Aragonian. She needs years of Habiru lessons. Imriel has weeks or months of Rus lessons on the ship and the island, but is still reduced to charades upon arrival. Eamon is required to take formal Caerdicci lessons before he can join a philosophy class. Brigita is the daughter of a ruler who’s main trading partner is Caerdicci, but she still struggles with the language.
For a series spanning dozens of countries and with magic as an option, there’s quite a lot of attention paid to the work it takes to learn to communicate. No “listen with your heart and you will understand” shortcuts. Any more focus, and they’d just be stories about people sitting in class all the time. And by and large, it’s made clear that people only learn as much as they need to get by.
