The Cognitive Benefits of Learning a New
Language
A The idea that learning a new language
improves your mental ability has always been widely accepted, even without
scientific evidence. There is a huge volume of anecdotal evidence for this
phenomenon, in the form of people reporting a general improvement of memory or
mental capacity when studying a new language. Studies have now reinforced this
belief by revealing the way in which learning new languages actually affects
the brain, and in doing so have reinforced the idea that doing so as an adult
can have long-term benefits to mental health. These studies have shown how the process
of learning how to pronounce phonemes which are unfamiliar, or learning how to
express oneself using a new sentence structure or grammar pattern, can have a
direct impact on the extent of our cognitive ability, stretching it and
extending it in ways that would not otherwise be possible.
B One such study was conducted by Swedish
scientists working in Lund University, who utilised brain imaging techniques to
track the ways in which language learning affects cognition. They carried
out an MRI study on young military recruits who were learning languages like
Arabic, Russian or Dari, and compared their brain activity to a control group
who were studying topics other than languages. The military recruits were studying at the Swedish Armed Forces
Interpreter Academy, which teaches highly intensive courses through which
students can achieve fluency in a new language within the space of a year. The
intensity of their training allowed the study to be carried out over a
relatively short space of time. The results were remarkable, as the MRI scans
revealed that the language learners’ brains grew in specific areas whilst the
brains of the control group did not.
C The development of the language students’
brains was particularly notable because they were different for each
individual, depending on their level of language ability. Those students who excelled at language
learning tending to develop more in the hippocampus and areas of the cerebral
cortex, which are known to be related to language development, whilst others
developed the motor region of the cerebral cortex more. Johan Mårtensson, one of the researchers involved, stated that, ‘We
were surprised that different parts of the brain developed to different degrees
depending on how well the students performed.’ Mårtensson and his colleagues
believe that such development proves how beneficial language learning is for
long-term health.
D This type of analysis is now being applied
to adult language learning in a range of contexts, many of which have thrown up
intriguing results. One such study of Japanese learners of English has shown
how specific pronunciation challenges faced by language students can be addressed
with recourse to brain imaging techniques. A typical Japanese speaker struggles
with the English sounds for ‘l’ and ‘r’, which are not distinct in Japanese.
This is evident from brain scans in which both sounds stimulate a single area
of a Japanese person’s brain, compared with two distinct areas in an English
speaker’s brain. Based
on this discrepancy, researchers came up with a program which modified the
sounds of each phoneme just enough so that Japanese learners were able to
distinguish between them. This allowed them to rapidly pick up the differences between the two
sounds and utilise them in speech. Similar brain mapping could have fruitful
implications for other areas where language learners struggle, of which there
are an almost infinite supply when considering the range of languages studied
across the globe.
E Meanwhile, a study conducted at Edinburgh
University in Scotland provided further credence to the idea that learning a
language later in life can have long-term positive benefits. This study used a
cohort of around 850 people all born in 1936, who were initially tested for
intelligence and cognition in 1947. The researchers thus had both a markedly
homogenous group in which factors such as social background did not differ much,
as well as data on these individuals from their childhood, from which they
could draw conclusions about development. This group was asked about their language learning experience
throughout their lives, and tested on various factors related to cognition and
intelligence. This revealed that bilingualism was a protection against
age-related cognitive decline and that reading, verbal fluency and general
intelligence were all affected positively by being bilingual. The researchers
also discovered that highly intelligent people benefited from learning a
language early in life, whilst those of lower intelligence benefited from later
acquisition, as well as proving that the cognitive benefits cumulatively
increase with every new language people learn. In the final analysis the study recommended
that even a modest change in the number of people learning new languages would
lower the frequency of brain problems among the general population.
F Although this is just a snapshot of the
wide variety of work that is going on in the fields of language learning and
cognitive development, news of these studies will hopefully propel people to
learn another language at some point in their life. The ultimate importance of such an
endeavour is perhaps most evident in the fact that the mean age at which the
first signs of dementia become manifest is 71.4 for monolingual people and 75.5
for bilingual people. Furthermore, a study at York University has revealed that Alzheimer
patients who were monolingual were diagnosed on average four years earlier than
those who were bilingual. As a means of preventing mental decline, it is hard to imagine
anything more enjoyable than immersing yourself in another language, especially
given the opportunity it provides to explore another culture and communicate
with so many more people.
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