Of course, learning languages other than the mother tongue has many advantages, but the topic has become almost a necessity in recent years, especially in the professional context.
In addition to being a skill that distinguishes us and adds to our training for certain types of work, it is now a practically personal and social need.
- The globalized society in which we live today pushes us to build daily relationships with people around the world.
- A feature that until a few years ago was reserved for the business world at the highest level.
- But today it is as natural as opening up any social network and interacting with the rest of the world.
On the other hand, the drastic reduction in long-distance transport prices in recent years, especially for low-cost airlines, has changed our view of what an international journey is, which has become very exclusive to be even cheaper than some local travel.
More and more people are dominating at least one second language, in addition to their mother tongue. Children begin learning for themselves in a second language as soon as they start going to the maternity ward to get a good foundation for future school readiness.
They gain language prowess and accustom the ear to new language and sounds throughout the game, increasing their creative ability and ability to solve problems.
When it comes to adults, it is becoming increasingly common to see students over the age of 30 in language schools. Demand for foreign language courses has increased not only because of the need to include knowledge of a second language in the curriculum. , but also because of the brain benefits of learning.
The elderly are another growing age group that has also entered the world of studying new languages. Learning a second language at an advanced age is an ideal way to apply new skills and maintain cognitive abilities for as long as possible.
Older people can incorporate new knowledge into their extensive lifelong learning experience. Once we reach maturity, we know that the skills to acquire new knowledge are no longer the same as at younger ages.
However, maturity also makes us more effective when it comes to studying a second language, because we already have more learning techniques that we know work best with our learning style.
In conclusion, if children adapt naturally by acquiring new knowledge, adults take advantage of their life experience to learn, so studying a language is not necessarily more difficult with age, it is simply different.
Concentration is the ability to use all our mental or physical faculties in a specific activity, to be focused is to know how to listen, observe and absorb everything that interests us
To memorize vocabulary, grammar, conjugations, that is to say to learn a language, one must be receptive and be careful.
Studying a foreign language gives us a high level of concentration in everything we hear, translate or communicate, so with this acquired skill, as with any other cognitive ability, the more we work with it, the greater the benefit for our brain.
The brain may remain active longer if we work properly on all different cognitive abilities. Neuroscientists agree that the more brain skills we use, the less frequent the failures in their functions.
Language learning is beneficial because it is one of the most complete cognitive exercises: memory is activated and new neural connections are created when moving from one language to another.
In this way, functions such as language, reasoning ability, abstraction, and the ability to calculate are enhanced by learning another language.
Recent research shows that people who learn languages maintain mental alertness, delaying the aging process in certain cognitive areas.
In addition, people who speak at least two languages have a more flexible brain, more able to adapt to different situations and move faster from one activity to another.
Researchers at Lund University in Sweden conducted a study to determine whether the brain structure of a group of subjects had changed after three months of learning a language.
They compared any group of students to any other group of people who had learned to speak a new language fluently.
Before starting the study group learning process, both groups underwent a nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) exam, a noninvasive technique for information on brain structure).
After three months of studying the new language, when they repeated the same MRI exam, they found that while students’ brain structure remained the same, unchanged, parts of students’ brains who had learned a new language had grown.
The areas that showed changes were the hippocampus, directly related to language learning, a region of the temporal lobe related to spatial orientation, and three areas of the cerebral cortex related to language skills.
One of the benefits of language learning is the ability to improve memory. Acquiring proficiency in a second language requires the brain to use other regions that are not usually used by monolinguals.
In addition, speaking two or more languages promotes the creation of new information associations, creating new alternative paths to reach memory.
In this way, short- and long-term memory is reinforced by the skills to be used and developed when learning a new language.
Finally, it should be noted that languages have enormous value in the field of work, since in addition to all these benefits they are also a gateway to other cultures.