Many language learners claim that studying a new language is fun twice. First, at the beginning, when it’s new and exciting, and secondly, at the end, once you’ve reached fluency. The middle is inevitably a challenge, and many language learners reach a stage where they seriously consider throwing in the towel.
Despite the challenge — or perhaps exactly because of it — learning a new language can improve your life by bringing you new experiences, new relationships, and research shows that it has immensely beneficial effects on your brain in many, faceted ways. Learning to speak another language takes time, but it has a profoundly positive impact on us.
Studies on language learners
Research into language learning continues to uncover a wealth of advantages for our brains whether one grows up bilingual or learns as an adult (though the advantages can differ in some ways depending on age). Here are a few brain benefits that result from exercising them in this unique way. Learning a language:
1. Improves cognition. This includes having better academic skills and performance, especially in young people. It’s been shown to improve students’ literacy as well, a key indicator of young people’s success in other subjects as they grow. Further, even just a week of learning a language improves a student’s ability to concentrate, regardless of age. It also makes them better able to multi-task, since the brain is used to switching to and activating different areas.
2. Slows down ageing of the brain. This is due to several reasons, including how studying a language is the perfect combination of learning new things (like vocab words) and practice or exercises. This preserves cognitive function and short- and long-term memory recall — a trait found in those who were raised multi-lingual and in those who learned as an adult. Crucially, multi-lingual people tend to experience a delay in the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s or dementia.
3. Improved decision making. Multi-lingual people demonstrate a stronger ability to take in more, varied perspectives, allowing them to better make decisions. Further, they tend to be better able to make logical decisions rather than being swept away by impulse.
4. Increases creativity. Multi-lingual students tend to have a more flexible, receptive brain that’s better at problem-solving and more open to new ideas. This could be a result of the constant need to switch between languages, of honing the skills required to study a language, and of translating generally.
5. Stronger communication skills. Multi-lingual people are more easily able to practice empathy in two ways: firstly, they have a stronger ability to see more perspectives, and secondly, by recognizing critical factors while engaging in the act of connecting with others across cultures. They are also better at active listening, which means listening while understanding, reflecting, responding, and remembering the information for later.
In practice: Interview with a language learner
TerraYou wanted to dive into what these mental benefits could look like in practice, so we sat down with someone who speaks English and German to find out how an individual could be affected by the experience of changing the brain by teaching it a language.
Elizabeth Estle grew up in the United States and didn’t learn a second language until high school. However, it wasn’t until meeting a German and moving to Germany that she truly focused on becoming bi-lingual.
TerraYou: Before jumping in, can you give us some background on when you started learning a second language and at what level you currently speak?
Elizabeth: I learned Spanish in high school, but it was “paper” Spanish that I unfortunately didn’t have the opportunity to use often. After moving abroad, I ended up really committing to German when I was about 27. Now I have a C1 certificate, which means that I’m considered fluent according to the language-learning world.
TY: You seem to have more to say about that; care to elaborate?
Elizabeth: C1 level has many, many sub-levels and milestones within it, and I feel very aware of how much more learning is ahead of me. A C1 certificate helps out in many bureaucratic or professional situations, but I want to be able to express myself with the same amount of precision and artistic creativity in German as I do in English, and I’m not there yet.
TY: If you look at this list of cognitive benefits to your brain when learning a language — from stronger cognition, improved decision making, and so on — have you seen any of these traits in yourself?
Elizabeth: Improved communication resonates with me. Especially when you have gaps in your knowledge, you get very good at reading people’s tone and body language and combining it with the actual words being spoken. Adding it all together allows you to understand exactly what is being communicated to you. When you’re learning a new language after your native tongue is already mastered, you pick up the hard lesson that words mean so much more than their direct translations do. Idioms are an easy example. “Deinen Senf dazu geben” is to give your “Senf” (a German condiment that’s like mustard) to something, which is best translated as “giving your two cents”. Culturally born idioms are good illustrations that language is informed by the society in which it is spoken. They go on to directly influence the worldviews of the people in that society in turn, which can be innocent, like joking about mustard, but language can also sustain — or fight against — stereotypes, for example.
TY: This touches on communicative empathy, one of the traits that researchers have found increases when learning a language.
Elizabeth: Exactly, and it’s one of my favorite aspects of how your brain changes for the better when learning a language! At first, communicative empathy simply sounds like extending empathy to your conversation partner, but it’s more intricate than that. It’s about factoring in their worldview when you talk to them, avoiding the assumption that they’re coming to the conversation with the same experiences you’ve had. Learning a language teaches you to avoid holding people’s differing world views against them when they haven’t walked the same path you have — and trusting them to extend the same empathy to you. And of course, reminding yourself to learn from the richness they’re bringing to the table.
TY: Did any traits from the cognition list come as a surprise?
Elizabeth: Not really, though it’s fascinating to have them explained fully. It makes sense that language learners and multi-lingual people exhibit better decision-making techniques, especially when it’s partially explained by the ability to factor in different perspectives before deciding something. Often times, even before you travel somewhere, you spend months, maybe years, diving into that culture, learning how they likely have the same values as you, they just express it differently. Taking in new perspectives cannot be divorced from that idea, and exposure to those new perspectives gives you the chance to reflect on the way you see the world and your place in it. Thinking back to who I was when I first started learning, my worldview feels much narrower and less flexible in comparison to now. I feel like I can better fill the shoes of others, regardless of which language they speak because I know how much “World” is out there that I just don’t know about yet. I’m more aware of my blind spots, which also encourages me to trust the expertise of others.
TY: People often say that language learning is a marathon, not a sprint. What are some techniques that kept you running?
Elizabeth: I got advice that I really didn’t want to hear from a friend of mine: You have to commit to sounding ridiculous and make peace with it. Early on in my journey, when I didn’t have the grammar or vocabulary to say what I wanted to, I felt very desperate very often because I could tell people considered me childish…because I sounded like a child! Over and over and over, you have to push through your frustration and embarrassment until you have that one conversation and realize, “I think…I think that went ok!” You’ll feel that way more and more often, the deeper you immerse yourself in the language, even if you don’t have access to formal classes.
TY: Thinking about the future, do you have a milestone in mind where you’ll finally say: “I’m at the level of German I always wanted to reach! I’m finished!”?
Elizabeth: If I can write an entire short story without having to look up a word or double-check my grammar with my partner who’s a native speaker, then I’ll stop! But even if improving my German is something that’s always going on in the background, would that be so bad? Especially since we know how much sharper it makes our brains! At C1 level, I’m still actively pursuing German, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Language “in conversation” with our cognition
Research on just how languages are improving our brains is still ongoing, but the benefits are already proven to be incredible! Whether you learned another language from birth or you’re starting fresh as an adult, even just short-term study shows the above-mentioned advances to your brain.
If you want to share your own story of growing up bilingual or learning a language as an adult, we’d love to hear from you.
