5 things that happen to your brain when you learn a new language
- Learning a new language has been shown to sharpen your cognitive abilities while helping stave off dementia as you age.
- A University of Chicago study found that businesspeople make better decisions when weighing problems in a non-native tongue.
- Juggling multiple languages lets bilingual speakers switch between tasks with less stress and more control than monolinguists.
In an increasingly globalized world, some believe you only need to speak English in order to engage in international business. As language expert David Crystal explains in his book, How Language Works, this is a false assumption. In Europe, for example, Crystal points out speaking multiple languages is "seen as a criterion of responsible international citizenship."
Crystal writes that multilingualism prepares children to cope with a constantly changing society. Of course, learning a new language isn't confined to the young: there are myriad benefits at every age. We list five important brain-boosting features of learning a foreign language below.
From increased tolerance and employment opportunities to a wide range of memory and problem-solving skills, foreign languages teach us about others as well as ourselves. When you speak in a new language you gain perspective on the reality you've constructed around your original tongue. Not only do you speak differently, you learn how to think differently.
Whether doing it for others or yourself, the many benefits of multilingualism are available through a variety of online courses and apps like Rype or Babbel. Never has the bar to entry been so low and the recognized benefits so high.
1. A boon for cognition
Your muscles become weak when you stop training them. They even atrophy over time. The human brain works in much the same manner. When you stop learning, neural connections are weakened. This results in forgetfulness and potentially dementia.
One of the best means for staving off dementia is learning a new language. As a 2018 review, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, puts it, "One of the non-pharmacological approaches, which may enhance cognitive abilities and protect against the decline in healthy older population, seems to be the learning of a foreign language."
You can grow new neuronal connections at any age provided you keep learning. Foreign languages force you to think differently. A language lesson is like a session in the brain gym. The most effective way to not lose your memory is to keep using it—a necessity when learning a language. Besides memory enhancement, languages improve overall cognitive functioning, raise self-esteem, and increase opportunities for socializing, all necessary skills in aging populations.
2. Improve your decision-making skills
A unique study at the University of Chicago found that businesspeople make better decisions when weighing problems in a non-native tongue. UChicago psychologist Boaz Keysar argues that foreign languages force you to contemplate decisions instead of relying on intuition, which is riddled with biases. As people tend to be loss-averse, they sometimes overlook favorable opportunities. By considering a business opportunity presented in a foreign language, they have to spend more time thinking through all angles of every deal. This reduces the emotional pull of a risky endeavor while revealing potential avenues that have not been considered. This skill makes you a better critical thinker in every language you speak.
3. Creativity unleashed!
An extensive review of the benefits of multilingualism indicate a strong connection between creative flexibility, fluency, and originality. How often have you heard a non-native English speaker make a unique observation with a combination of words you've never heard but that make complete sense? New languages cause you to picture landscapes of possibilities. Choosing the proper term for a feeling or thought is itself an act of creation. During the first few years of life we do this at a rapid pace. As you age, you become more deliberate in your word choice. New languages free you from the conventions of habit. Expressing yourself in a new language is a creative act, and that mindset translates into other realms of life.
Credit: @jankolario on Unsplash
4. Increased attention
We live in an attention economy and many people suffer from a deficit. When you hear a word or phrase being spoken, your brain actually guesses at the completed statement. We're constantly guessing reality all the time. Interestingly, bilingual speakers don't turn off one language when listening to another. They're anticipating words from multiple languages all the time, according to an article published in the journal, Cerebrum. As the authors write,
"To maintain the relative balance between two languages, the bilingual brain relies on executive functions, a regulatory system of general cognitive abilities that includes processes such as attention and inhibition."
Because bilingual speakers must navigate two (or more) languages during every conversation, their brain is primed for attention. This results in greater executive control of their cognitive functions, which is a great advantage in the current attention economy.
5. Masters of multitasking
Research from Penn State found bilingual speakers have enhanced cognitive flexibility, which facilitates new learning. This follows a study at the same university that discovered juggling multiple languages affords the speaker greater cognitive control, allowing the speaker to code-switch with ease. This ability to juggle languages lets them switch between tasks with less stress and more control than monolinguists. Instead of bogging the bilingual speaker down when searching for the right language, speaking in multiple tongues actually speeds up their ability to jump from mental task to mental task.
Interested in learning a new language?
The most effective way of learning a new language is putting it into action. Babbel is an online language pioneer that immerses you in real-life dialogues from day one. Courses are based on your native language and interests. Babbel's language experts devise a series of cognitive techniques that helps the information stick. Best yet, the app's speech recognition offers instant feedback. You'll be conversing quickly while retaining the words and phrases you learn. Learn more here.
Some people simply learn better with an actual human teacher. That's where Rype comes in. You can learn any of this services' 10 languages in one-on-one lessons with expert teachers via Skype. The average retention of Rype learners is 90 percent—well above most apps or classrooms. Flexible scheduling with 24/7 availability means you learn at your convenience with a real human being. That feedback is irreplaceable. There is a 7-day free trial—learn more here.
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As he described it, “In my mind's eye I saw many, many things: children that I hadn't even had yet, friends that I had never seen but are now my friends. The thing that really stuck in my mind was playing an instrument". Then Tony landed on his head and lost consciousness.
When he came to at the hospital, he felt like a different person and didn't want to return to his previous life. Over the following weeks, the images kept flashing back into his mind. He felt that he was “being shown something" and that the images represented his future.
Later, Tony saw a picture of a saxophone and recognized it as the instrument he'd seen himself playing. He used his compensation money from the accident to buy one. Now, Tony Kofi is one of the UK's most successful jazz musicians, having won the BBC Jazz awards twice, in 2005 and 2008.
Though Tony's belief that he saw into his future is uncommon, it's by no means uncommon for people to report witnessing multiple scenes from their past during split-second emergency situations. After all, this is where the phrase “my life flashed before my eyes" comes from.
But what explains this phenomenon? Psychologists have proposed a number of explanations, but I'd argue the key to understanding Tony's experience lies in a different interpretation of time itself.
When life flashes before our eyes
The experience of life flashing before one's eyes has been reported for well over a century. In 1892, a Swiss geologist named Albert Heim fell from a precipice while mountain climbing. In his account of the fall, he wrote is was “as if on a distant stage, my whole past life [was] playing itself out in numerous scenes".
More recently, in July 2005, a young woman called Gill Hicks was sitting near one of the bombs that exploded on the London Underground. In the minutes after the accident, she hovered on the brink of death where, as she describes it: “my life was flashing before my eyes, flickering through every scene, every happy and sad moment, everything I have ever done, said, experienced".
In some cases, people don't see a review of their whole lives, but a series of past experiences and events that have special significance to them.
Explaining life reviews
Perhaps surprisingly, given how common it is, the “life review experience" has been studied very little. A handful of theories have been put forward, but they're understandably tentative and rather vague.
For example, a group of Israeli researchers suggested in 2017 that our life events may exist as a continuum in our minds, and may come to the forefront in extreme conditions of psychological and physiological stress.
Another theory is that, when we're close to death, our memories suddenly “unload" themselves, like the contents of a skip being dumped. This could be related to “cortical disinhibition" – a breaking down of the normal regulatory processes of the brain – in highly stressful or dangerous situations, causing a “cascade" of mental impressions.
But the life review is usually reported as a serene and ordered experience, completely unlike the kind of chaotic cascade of experiences associated with cortical disinhibition. And none of these theories explain how it's possible for such a vast amount of information – in many cases, all the events of a person's life – to manifest themselves in a period of a few seconds, and often far less.
Thinking in 'spatial' time
An alternative explanation is to think of time in a “spatial" sense. Our commonsense view of time is as an arrow that moves from the past through the present towards the future, in which we only have direct access to the present. But modern physics has cast doubt on this simple linear view of time.
Indeed, since Einstein's theory of relativity, some physicists have adopted a “spatial" view of time. They argue we live in a static “block universe" in which time is spread out in a kind of panorama where the past, the present and the future co-exist simultaneously.
The modern physicist Carlo Rovelli – author of the best-selling The Order of Time – also holds the view that linear time doesn't exist as a universal fact. This idea reflects the view of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, who argued that time is not an objectively real phenomenon, but a construct of the human mind.
This could explain why some people are able to review the events of their whole lives in an instant. A good deal of previous research – including my own – has suggested that our normal perception of time is simply a product of our normal state of consciousness.
In many altered states of consciousness, time slows down so dramatically that seconds seem to stretch out into minutes. This is a common feature of emergency situations, as well as states of deep meditation, experiences on psychedelic drugs and when athletes are “in the zone".
The limits of understanding
But what about Tony Kofi's apparent visions of his future? Did he really glimpse scenes from his future life? Did he see himself playing the saxophone because somehow his future as a musician was already established?
There are obviously some mundane interpretations of Tony's experience. Perhaps, for instance, he became a saxophone player simply because he saw himself playing it in his vision. But I don't think it's impossible that Tony did glimpse future events.
If time really does exist in a spatial sense – and if it's true that time is a construct of the human mind – then perhaps in some way future events may already be present, just as past events are still present.
Admittedly, this is very difficult to make sense of. But why should everything make sense to us? As I have suggested in a recent book, there must be some aspects of reality that are beyond our comprehension. After all, we're just animals, with a limited awareness of reality. And perhaps more than any other phenomenon, this is especially true of time.
Steve Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
