A study evaluated the ability of older adults to accurately perceive and retain Spanish in their short-term memory. Specifically, the study investigated differences in native language (English) auditory perception, short-term native language auditory memory capacity, monolingual age differences in auditory perception ability in an unknown language, and age differences in auditory perception ability among adults with some proficiency in Spanish. Ten different tests of perception, memory, and comprehension in both languages were administered to four groups of current or former missionaries of the Mormon Church. The younger paticipants were between the ages of 19-25, and the older participants were between the ages of 50-79. Participants were English monolinguals and native English-speakers with some Spanish proficiency. Results are reported and examined for each test and group. An analysis suggests that, in general, older adults have a somewhat greater difficulty in perceiving second-language speech. However, both older and younger adults showed similar auditory memory capacity. Every measure indicated greater variation among older adult scores. (MSE)