At a very young age, recovering the first language can be very difficult even for children. Ventureyraa, Pallierb, and Yooc (2004) found that Korean adoptees do not have easy access to the phonetic categories of the Korean language, which suggests that the L1 may be lost and irretrievable at the native speaker level depending on the time and distance from its practice. Ventureyraa, Pallierb, and Yooc (2004) studied whether early exposure to a language leaves lasting traces in the brain. They looked into this by testing a group of native Koreans adopted by French speakers. The above results suggest that they cannot identify Korean sentences, nor can they determine Korean words. In the present study, Ventureyraa, Pallierb, and Yooc (2004) focus on possible remnants of L1 phonology by assessing adoptees' ability to distinguish voiceless Korean consonants that are difficult to detect by native French speakers. Data from groups of adoptees, native French speakers, and native Korean speakers show that adoptees do not recognize differences between Korean phonemes better than native French speakers once not exposed to Korean. Furthermore, adoptees who were re-exposed to Korean and those without re-exposure performed similarly on this task. Age and Language Attrition Factors for Adults Adult learners are in a similar position to second language learners in many respects: 1) they already have a “first language” so to speak, having completed the courses basic education; 2) since they are older they are more conservative in their ways and learning new information requires mental flexibility, which means dealing with the pain of learning something new; 3) in many cases they are pressing or...... half of the paper...... (2009). Cross-linguistic similarity in foreign language learning. In M. Long and C. Doughty, Language Teaching. Blackwell Publishing Inc. Retrieved July 20, 2012, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444315783.ch7/summarySchmid, M. S., and Keijzer, M. (2009). First language attrition and regression among older migrants. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 83-101.Ventureyraa, V.A., Pallierb, C., & Yooc, H.-Y. (2004). The loss of first language phonetic perception in adopted Koreans. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 17, 79-91.Xie, M. (2010, Spring). First language maintenance and abandonment among young adult Chinese immigrants: A multi-case study. Thesis. Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta. Ziglari, L. (2008). The role of interaction in L2 acquisition: An emerging perspective. European Journal of Scientific Research, 23(3), 226-453.