Make your life more beautiful

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Recently, as I am rapidly approaching eighty, I began learning my fourth foreign language, although my degree of proficiency in each varies greatly.

While learning Spanish a few weeks ago, I found it easy for two reasons: It contains many words that I know, some of which are common in our environment, such as sabat, trousers, olives, sugar, shirt, and mais, and some of them are in common with Arabic, Persian, French, English, and many others. It is also an easy language to write, as the way its words are pronounced is often the same as the way they are written, and this is an advantage that I did not find in other languages that I know, and I have always complained to myself about my weakness in “spelling”!

The number of Spanish speakers is approximately 500 million, and it is the language of more than 20 countries. There is also a large community in the United States that speaks Spanish, in addition to residents of Puerto Rico.

Only in the past few decades has the world learned the benefits of speaking more than one language. It was believed that teaching a child a second language hinders the development of his cognitive abilities.

This has proven to be untrue, and that speaking more than one language has clear practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world, as well as a blessing in disguise.

Moving from speaking one language to another, forces the brain to resolve the internal conflict, giving it an exercise that strengthens its cognitive muscles.

Scientists also found that it has other advantages, other than what was mentioned, as it gives the bilingual speaker the ability to communicate with a wide group of people. Bilinguals are also generally more skilled than monolinguals at solving certain types of mental puzzles.

Being bilingual also makes you more intelligent, at least in the eyes of others. Mastering other languages also has a profound effect on the mind, improving non-language cognitive skills and even protecting against dementia in old age. Knowing a second language improves the ability to read and the ability to describe. The Russian language, for example, is rich in many names for shades of one color compared to others, and thus its speaker can describe the color of a car, for example, more accurately than a non-speaker.

Bilinguals are also characterized by a greater degree of attention, which is used for planning, solving problems, performing various other tasks that require mental effort, and remembering directions better, for example while driving.

As bilingualism affects the brain from childhood to old age, there is reason to believe it may also apply to those who learn a second language later in life.

In a recent study conducted on a number of elderly people who speak Spanish and English, scientists found that individuals who had a higher degree of bilingualism were more resistant than others to the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s; the higher the degree of bilingualism, the later the onset of the disease.

Learning a second or new language also stimulates the brain and attention, expands the chances of finding a job or a good job, enhances creativity, improves memory, and makes traveling to countries whose language you know safer and more enjoyable.

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By Ahmad alsarraf

This news has been read 1202 times!