Up to the age of 21, he <had> thought…

[brian&me]

Benny had 11 years of Irish Gaelic and five years of German at school. He couldn’t speak them at all when graduating. Up to the age of 21, he thought he didn’t have the language gene, and he could not speak another language.
Source: Lýdia Machová – Language Learning Secrets (TED) - Language mentoring

I’d like to know if the last sentence is correctly written. I mean if it’s necessary to reword it as follows:
1. Up to the age of 21, he had thought he didn’t have the language gene, and he could not speak another language.

2. At the age of 21, he thought he didn’t have the language gene, and he could not speak another language.

 

[The Newt]

In American English just "thought" is fine; UK usage may be different. "At" would change the meaning. He thought it continuously, up to and including the time when he turned 21.

 

[se16teddy]

Hi Brian&me, do you know what the speaker means by “when graduating”? Does it refer to
- the time he left school (before the age of 21, I suppose)
- the time he left university (after the age of 21, I suppose)
- or something else, maybe a time period?

 

[cidertree]

11 years of Irish - 6 in primary school, and 5 in secondary - would make 'Benny' about 18 when he left school. There's no mention of university in the linked page.

I assume that "he started to look for his way of learning languages" when he was 21, whatever he had been doing for the previous 3 years.

 

[Wordy McWordface]

The third sentence is fine in both AmE and BrE. "Up to the age of 21" is a precise, finished period in the past, so it is correct to use the past simple. We are not looking at this period in contrast to a later period, so there is no need to use the past perfect.

NB The problem with this text is the second sentence, as we've explained in your other thread: Benny had 11 years of Irish Gaelic and five years of German at school.

 

[brian&me]

Hi Brian&me, do you know what the speaker means by “when graduating”? Does it refer to
- the time he left school (before the age of 21, I suppose)
- the time he left university (after the age of 21, I suppose)
- or something else, maybe a time period?

Hi se16teddy. I think she means "the time he left school" by “when graduating”.

 

[Myridon]

When he graduated = Around the time that he successfully finished school
When he was graduating = During the graduation ceremony.

 

[cidertree]

Not our 'Benny' though - he would have left school at about 18, and if he graduated, it would have been from university.

 

[Wordy McWordface]

As I said here: Benny had 11 years of Irish Gaelic and five years of German at school, there are two problems with this sentence.

One is the speaker's poor choice of tense/grammar. As Myridon points out, "when graduating" would mean "during the graduation ceremony". This is not what the speaker meant to say: she should have used the past tense: when he left/finished school.

The second is a poor choice of vocabulary. Benny* grew up in Ireland, not the USA. As far as I know, it is only in the US that 'graduate' means "successfully finish school", at the age of 18 or so. In Ireland, as in the UK and all other English speaking countries, 'graduate' means to receive a university degree - such as a BA or Bsc - after completing at least three years of an undergraduate university course. The statement clearly refers to leaving school at around 18 (after 11 years of unsuccessful language learning) rather than graduating at 21 (with an engineering degree, apparently - nothing to do with language learning).


*Irishman Benny Lewis of "look how I completely failed to learn a language in 3 months" notoriety. A salesman, not a polyglot.

 

[cidertree]

The speaker in the OP seems to have paraphrased this from Benny Lewis' site:

"At school, I spent 11 years studying Irish (Gaeilge) and 5 years studying German. Even after all this study, I still couldn't speak either of them."