Research Paper
-How Learning a New Language can Elevate you Socially, Mentally, and in your Career-
By Phoebe Dick
Ma souer est folle, et je déteste absolument positivement faire ce genre de chose. Oops! Pardon my French! What’s that, you don’t know any language besides English? Just as this scenario depicts many people in our everyday lives, perhaps even ourselves, are like this person. Only knowing one language through our whole life, this actually hinders us in many ways we don’t realize. In fact not only can we not experience another culture, but our mental strength is less if we limit ourselves to one language instead of learning two or more. Learning another language can open many opportunities, but can it also make us smarter than the average person?
Many people used to think it was detrimental to the brain because it over worked it and slowed it down. They thought our brains were only capable of handling so much information. Contrary to what people thought, learning another language can actually make our brains sharper and faster. Just as a basketball players skill becomes better by practicing and learning more, so do our cognitive skills as we learn and practice a new language. The brain becomes better at focusing and blocking out distractions because of constant focus dedicated to speaking right in a certain language. It also lessens your chance of dementia as you get older, an added bonus!
Of course learning a new language from birth is even more beneficial. It molds you from your language learning prime to have great concentration. These people are especially able to switch to different tasks while not losing focus of their work. “Being Bilingual, or even learning a second language later in life, has been shown to slow the decline of some key brain functions” as said by Ellen Bialystok
