Everyone knows that knowing a second or third language boosts your brain activity, but do you know to what extent that happens? If you have intermediate to advanced Spanish, read this article from La Vanguardia, a Spanish newspaper. If you don´t, let me sum it up for you. First, kids who grow up bilingual have more brain plasticity; they multitask more easily. Second, learning and knowing a second or third language uses parts of your brain that knowing only your mother tongue doesn´t. Third, adults do have more difficulty learning a foreign language because of their experience in their native language. It deforms your perception and teaches your brain to ignore certain sounds. This is a very good and informative article and it´s worth the read. If you have doubts about vocabulary, post them here and I´ll help you!
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5 Comments
Wow, interesting article. I’m especially intrigued by what psychological benefit are acquired by learning a second language. I’ve come across articles such as this before which state that there are proven benefits which come from the mental ‘gymnastics’ that are required to speak and think in a second language. However, I often thought that the act of speaking a second language can frequently requires an individual to be reasonably outgoing and sociable – I wonder that it has nearly as many benefits for emotional wellbeing as it does psychological!
04-05-2008
I think all the Spanish Articles are great. Thanks so much for sending them to me.
HC
Having studied 5 foreign languages in my lifetime, I am amazed that you do not learn just words,but the concepts behind them. I am reading the spanish Civil War by Antony Beevor and how confused the belligerants were (from “bellum” in Latin which did not survive the guerra of the Huns.) If our government had known the psychological concepts it may have never gone into Irag or Vietnam. In Greece today concepts of hatred towards the Turks are in their language just as concepts of contempt towards blacks were in our language. We must understand those concepts and that they are there before we can begin to deal with them! A great deal of our “border’ trouble with Mexico today is the inadequacy and selfishness of the Mexican rich toward the poor. A pope told them when he was down there: “You hide the bread of the poor from the poor.” and so the contagion swells.
learning a f9teign language is a skill; many hours dpent on reasdng,grt to know the intricacies of the language{grammar and speling; ] hard to learn, it is taxing the brain, requires a philosophical attitude] not attracted to wotldly pleasures,, the learner must be profane,seriousness of thought, a skill devoted to humanitarian considerations, sympathy for the aggrieved, a sane mind that fortells the divinity of the soul, a mind mature and aspirations to to reach the divinity of mind that elates you to become divine
It is far better to learn a non European language in my opinion. (if a European language is your first language) It gives you a glimpse of a different culture, and it is so radically different in grammar and writing that it teaches so much more about languages in general. I wonder how this affects your brain compared to people who only learn another European language.