The relation between the brain and learning

Is language learning just a skill required for academic or professional success? Or it is just a hobby developed to spend time learning something new?

If we think practically and logically, we shall understand that learning a language has many more benefits in life. It can be taken up at any age and at any stage in life. Even a period required to learn a language has nothing to do with one’s age, race, location, academic qualification, or professional choices. In fact, it depends on a person’s attitude (which should be positive and receptive) and aptitude (willingness and a keen interest in learning a new language) more than anything else.

There are many cognitive benefits, too, of language learning

1) Learning a new language strengthens memory

When one is trying to acquire a new skill right from scratch, one is essential in the learning and grasping mode. One makes efforts to understand and grasp new knowledge and information, and add it to one’s store of memory, to be able to use it at a later date whenever required in life. This helps one to improve or strengthen memory.

2) It raises one’s intellectual quotient

Learning a new language does not only teach one to communicate in an additional language, it also gives immense knowledge of a new culture and society, especially when language learning is a task or assignment or theme-based. When topics such as history, geography, geology, traditions, etc. of the land which the new language belongs to are taught as lessons in theme-based learning, an individual’s knowledge increases manifold.

3) It develops and raises one’s emotional quotient

An expression in one language might not mean the same if translated literally in another language. All societies, all cultures have different ways to express anything. An innocent joke in one culture might sound like an offense in another. A marketing strategy in one nation or region (where the people are easy-going and broad-minded) might hurt the sentiments of people in another region (where the people are highly reactive to a social or cultural phenomenon, and probably even narrow-minded)

4) It increases the number of perspectives from which a person looks at things

When a person, while learning a new or second language, understands that there are more than one way in which anything can be spoken, interpreted and conveyed, one develops the ability to apply the same in other spheres of life. One’s ability to look at things from multiple perspectives develops gradually. Similarly, as something can be spoken in various manners, one learns to solve problems quickly, taking into account multiple facets of it, thus, being increasingly skillful and tactful at solving them.

5) Making better decisions

There is a definite health benefit if you can make better decisions in life, isn’t it? It is found that people who can speak two or more languages can understand the subtleties and intricate nuances of a situation and make decisions on that basis. On the other hand, those speaking only one language are usually emotionally tied while making decisions.

6) Better multitasking ability and attention span

Believe it or not, your ability to multitask is better when you speak two or more languages than those who can speak only one language. As a multilingual person has improved memory and ability to focus, they are also adept at switching from one task to another quickly and seamlessly.