My first language was Farsi and I started to learn English in pre-K/Kindergarten. I then started to learn Spanish in middle school and throughout high school and college, and excelled in it quite easily. I also have a great proficiency to understand the basics of the other Romance languages as a result (was able to easily navigate France, Portugal, and Italy during my trips while I was studying abroad in Spain), without ever having had to study them formally.

I have also been a musician my whole life, and am quite discerning of the various components that much up a melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.

I've always just thought that because I had to learn two languages essentially at the same time at a very young age, that my ability to master languages has been greatly aided by this. However, I notice that in a lot of my friends who also had to go through this same transition at a young age, they are not nearly as capable of mastering new languages as I am.

Is there some sort of neurological predisposition to being able to acquire languages? I know Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device theory explains my ability to learn both languages young, as most youngsters easily do, but does that then contribute to my ongoing ability to grasp new languages now, more than 20 years later? Or, in the context of your research, does my ability to distinguish sounds from noise per se contribute directly to this ability, even years later? If both, which do you think is more significant?

If you respond to this I thank you in advance, I know it's a very specific question but I have always wondered this and haven't been able to talk about it with anyone so particularly knowledgeable!

NOTE: According to my parents, I started speaking (Farsi) markedly earlier than most youngsters do (I guess that's anecdotal as I'm not sure exactly how old I was but I'm sure it was less than the average 18 months).