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rust me, it takes years to get to Arya's supposedly level of proficiency. I've lived in the middle of the god damn Mogolian plains doing chores, and it was still difficult for me to understand them, especially when it came to slang.

You were in China, which would be difficult as hell to learn. And you were much older than Arya.

Young kids can pick up languages much easier than adults, and depending on the language it doesn't take anywhere close to the time you are talking about to learn a language. I had a Spanish teacher in college who mainly became fluent by living in Spain for a 6 months after having classes in college.

A year would obviously be pushing it a bit, but a teenager could easily learn a latin based language in under two years if completely immersed in it like Arya is.

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Posted by ladytiger118

Member since Aug 2009

20922 posts

Posted on 3/26/14 at 9:29 pm to auyushu

Definitely; Arya is 11 in the books at this point? Maybe 12 at oldest?? Her mind is like a sponge; it's definitely easier for kids to learn a foreign language than an adult. Plus she had to immerse her in the language; the Waif helped her learn too.

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Posted by SoGaFan

Member since Jan 2008

5956 posts

Posted on 3/26/14 at 10:06 pm to auyushu

They are also living in an oral society. People in oral societies tend to be much quicker at picking up languages. Arya is also a highborn so she very likely was taught at least some High Valyrian. Since Braavos and most of the free cities appear to have started as colonies/freeholds from Valyria, i would guess there are very many similarities between all the languages of the Free Cities.

Lastly, and I haven't read this yet, so I have no idea, but there is certainly a magical quality to pulling on the face. Her accent would very likely be altered as well under this principle.

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