Digg:
Around the world, more than half of people – estimates vary from 60 to 75 per cent – speak at least two languages. Many countries have more than one official national language – South Africa has 11. People are increasingly expected to speak, read and write at least one of a handful of “super” languages, such as English, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish or Arabic, as well. So to be monolingual, as many native English speakers are, is to be in the minority, and perhaps to be missing out.
Multilingualism has been shown to have many social, psychological and lifestyle advantages. Moreover, researchers are finding a swathe of health benefits from speaking more than one language, including faster stroke recovery and delayed onset of dementia.
Could it be that the human brain evolved to be multilingual – that those who speak only one language are not exploiting their full potential?
One of my biggest schooling regrets is not sticking with French in junior and high school. So many of us in Canada and the United States don’t speak a second language. To this day, I wish I could speak French or Italian. I’m working on the rudiments of Portuguese in preparation for a trip I hope to take next April.
Boa sorte. Orde você está visitano?
This American (barely) learned German as a youngster. I’ve long maintained that I learned more about the English language in German classes than I did in English, because there’s so much value in the comparative learning.
And yeah, I regret letting it slip too.
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Duolingo. It had me prepared for my trip to France last year. Working on Italian now.
I can converse in Spanish, and I often get compliments on “no accent.”
As a hobby over the years, I’ve learned to say various phrases such as “Good morning”, “Hello”, and “Thank you” in about thirty languages. With each one I try to duplicate the correct pronunciation.
This generally produces pleasant surprise and smiles with those people.
BTW, this has nothing to do with the brain. It’s simple human relations and the showing of empathy and respect for other cultures.
It also helps if you have a good ear.
Absolutely agreed. When learning another language, you don’t only learn the language, you also learn abstract thinking about languages in general, which translates back to languages you already know. Typically we have very little abstract thinking about our first “native” language, because we learned it intuitively. But learning a second/third/additional language at an advanced age at which you can already abstract really helps you develop that part of your thinking.
As a speaker of three languages, I can really attest to this. Especially since one of these languages is very different from the other two: German, English and Japanese. Learning Japanese has broadened my horizon enormously and introduced a whole lot of new concepts to me. It’s a combination of the cultural difference, and being able to put words on concepts I didn’t even know existed previously. By now I almost have issues expressing myself to mono-lingualists, because I have to reduce my expressions to words in just one language.
Except in America, where Trump and his cronies promote a certain jingoism that is anything but international. N’est pas?
Another big problem in the USA is that we don’t begin teaching children a second language early enough. I was taught Spanish for one quarter in 7th grade, German for one quarter in 8th grade, and four years of German in high school. I barely remember any of it.
One of the thing I remember from my German class was how Germany, and other European countries, start teaching second languages in 2nd grade and third languages around 7th grade. I’ve heard of studies that show that people who learn a second language early in life are able to retain it and learn addition languages easier than those who begin later. I think it would be a huge benefit to our children to teach Spanish starting in 2nd grade and French or German, at least optionally, in 7th grade.
I do the same, just to be able to converse. It often gets me in trouble though.
Since I’ve practiced and learned to pronounce these common phrases so well, the person I am talking to thinks I can actually speak the language. Which leads to me smiling and saying, again using a practiced sentence, “I only speak a little”.
My first wife is Portuguese. Many members of her family didn’t speak English so I learned quire a bit actually.
My second wife is Japanese. That’s much different, but I got by in Japan. It’s amazing how far you can get with phrases like “excuse me”, “thank you”, you’re welcome, and “after you” then there are phrases we use in normal discourse like “good night”and “I’m home”, followed by “welcome home” and so on.
What I really enjoy about learning even a fraction of a language is gaining insight into the culture. Saying “I’m going to eat now” or “thank you for the meal” before and after EVERY meal is not something this Scotch Irish guy grew up doing. But it’s part of the culture. Something I’d never known had I not stopped to listen and try to learn, however limited that may be.
Americans are not defined by idiots like Trump, nor Hillary for that matter. Nāo é assim?
Agreed,it’s during those ages that we are like learning sponges.
L. Ron Hubbard defines “language” as “A symbolization of effort.” For example: American English has terms for space flight; Eskimo languages have words for different kinds of ice; some languages attribute meaning to different inflections of sound symbols (spoken words).
It’s a fascinating study if anyone cares to simply look (listen).
The Eskimo language having different words for ice, for instance, also reminds me of Japanese. In Japanese they use different types of pronouns depending on the noun. We say look at that and point to a cat, but in Japan they’d use a different pronoun for an animal. So you’d know, without looking that an animal is being talked about. Although, to be honest, because of those intricacies I don’t think I’ll have enough time to master the language. Even my wife, who was born in Tokyo can’t read everything completely. There are just too many characters.
I’ve always loved language but so much to learn and so little time….
Your experience and approach are similar to mine. Clearwater, FL is a melting pot of world cultures, and I’ve collected words for “Good morning” and “Thank you” in almost thirty languages. Fascinating!