Learning Languages: 5 Benefits For Your Brain

Learning languages ​​has gone in recent years from being a mainly professional need, reinforcing our training for certain jobs, to being a personal and social need.

The globalized society in which we live pushes us to interact on a daily basis with people from all over the planet. A facet that a few years ago was reserved for the highest level businesses, today it is as natural as opening any social network and interacting with the rest of the world.

On the other hand, the drastic reduction that long-distance transport prices have suffered in recent years, especially championed by the so-called low-cost aeronautical companies , has modified our concept of this type of travel, going from being something very exclusive , to be even cheaper than local tourism.

More and more people are fluent in at least one second language. Children begin to be instructed in a second language as soon as they begin to attend kindergarten to acquire a good foundation for their academic preparation. They acquire skills and accustom their hearing to a new language through play, thereby increasing their creative capacity and competence in problem solving.

As for adults, it is increasingly common to see students over 30 years old in language schools. The demand for foreign language courses has grown not only because of the need to put knowledge of a second language on the curriculum, but also because of the brain benefits that learning it brings.

Another increasingly numerous age group that has joined the language learning are our elders. Learning a second language in later life is a perfect way to put new skills into practice and maintain cognitive abilities for as long as possible.

Older adults can integrate new knowledge with their extensive learning experience. Having reached maturity, we know that the abilities to acquire new knowledge are not the same as at earlier ages, but maturity makes us more efficient when it comes to studying a second language since it makes us know the learning techniques that they work better for us.

In conclusion, while children are naturally adaptable in the instruction of new knowledge, adults take advantage of their life experience to learn. So studying a language is not necessarily more difficult with age, it is just different.

Learning languages: 5 benefits for the brain

Promotes concentration

Concentration is the ability to use all our mental or physical faculties on a specific activity. Being focused means being able to listen, observe and absorb everything for which we show interest. To memorize vocabulary, grammar, conjugations, that is, to learn a language, it is necessary to be receptive and pay attention.

The study of a foreign language provides us with a high level of concentration in all those we hear, translate or communicate, therefore with this skill, as with any other cognitive ability, the more we work with it, the greater the benefit for our brain.

Improves cognitive abilities

The brain can stay active longer if we work the different cognitive abilities in a convenient way.

Neurologists agree that the more brain competence is used, the less frequent the failure of its functions. Learning a language is one of the most complete cognitive exercises: memory is activated and new neural connections are created when changing from one language to another. Thus, functions such as language, the ability to reason, abstraction or the ability to calculate are enhanced with the learning of another language.

We can stay alert for longer

Recent research shows that language learners maintain mental alertness by slowing down the aging process in certain cognitive areas. Furthermore, individuals who speak at least two languages ​​have a more flexible brain, better able to adapt to different situations and switch from one activity to another more quickly.

Helps brain development

Scientists from the University of Lund (Sweden) carried out a study to see if the brain structure of a group of subjects underwent any change after learning a language in thirteen months. They compared a group of college students to a group of people who learned to speak a new language fluently.

Before starting the learning process of the study group, the two groups were subjected to a test by means of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR non-invasive technique to obtain information about the brain structure).

After thirteen months of studying a new language, when they repeated the MRI test again, they discovered that, while the brain structure of the university students remained unchanged, certain parts of the brain of the students of the 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.

Boost memory

Among the benefits of learning languages ​​is the ability to enhance memory. Acquiring fluency in a second language forces the brain to use other regions that monolinguals do not normally use. In addition, speaking two or more languages ​​favors the creation of new information association routes, which means new and alternative routes to reach a memory.

Thus, both short-term memory and long-term memory are reinforced with the skills used in language learning. Finally, it should be noted that languages ​​have enormous value in the workplace, but also, and above all, are keys to access other cultures.