Have you ever thought it would be really cool to learn another language? Have you ever been excited by the possibilities it would open up? There are new places to visit and enjoy (because you’re not panicking about getting lost or stuck because you can’t read the signs!) and new people to become friends with because you can understand each other.
When you learn another language, the benefits are not just external. It’s really good for your brain, too. There have been plenty of studies that look at the way people learn another language, and the effects that knowing a second language has on your brain, and the experts agree: It boosts brain power significantly. It even makes a difference to the way you use your brain: bilingual people have overall better cognitive abilities than people who only speak one language.
Learn Another Language And Benefit In These Ways
- When you learn another language, it helps to delay the normal onset of ageing in the brain, making you less likely to succumb to age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer’s. Even for those bilingual people who do get some form of old age dementia, the average age at which this happens is later (4.5 years later, according to a study published by the American Academy of Neuroscience).
- When you learn another language, it improves the connections between the various parts of the brain. This has wide-ranging effects on our ability to perform certain tasks. It also helps to lay down, store and retrieve memories, and focus and concentrate.
- When you learn another language, the size of the hippocampus in your brain can increase. The hippocampus is the centre for laying down, storing and retrieving memories. This means that bilingual people are generally better off when it comes to memory.
- A study found that after six weeks of learning a new language, brain structures changed in study participants. The brain’s plasticity – or ability to change – increased, even in elderly study participants.
- Children benefit from growing up in a bilingual home. Numerous studies reveal that they perform better on memory tasks, are more creative, and have a better sense of achievement.
- A survey conducted by the Eton Institute showed that 89% of survey participants believed that a multilingual employee added value to their businesses, and 88% also said they look for multilingual ability when recruiting new employees.
- People who are multilingual are more likely to understand and appreciate other cultures’ ways of thinking. Being multilingual broadens a person’s perspective of the world and enables greater understanding of others who are different.
- Learning another language makes you more aware of how your own language works. When you learn another language, you have to consciously understand the mechanics of language. This includes sentence structure, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary – things that are automatic in your own language. This can lead to an improvement in and better use of your first language.
Learn Another Language A Bite At A Time
So what can you do if you want to learn another language, but time pressures make it seem like a daunting task?
According to Deane Alban, of Be Brain Fit, the best way is to choose a small, achievable goal, and stick with it consistently. He suggests learning three words of another language per day. Each language contains many thousands of words, but a much smaller group of words makes up most of the words used in everyday language. Try to learn three words each day for a year. If you are consistent, you will be able to start using many of the common words in that language.
So what are you waiting for?! There is a whole world out there to explore in another language!
