Researches show that for the mental development you have to choose the latter.
Scientists say, that learning of foreign languages literary causes the brain grows or rather growth related only to some of the brain parts such as hippocampus and cortex of hemisphere.
This statement is proved by the experiment held in Academy of Translators in Sweden. Recently freshmen were offered to study difficult foreign languages such as Russian, Arabic and Dari language. They had to study for many hours every day. At the same time the scientists were investigating students of the medical university which were also working hard. Participants’ brains from both of groups were MRI scanned in the beginning of the experiment and three month later. MRI images showed that brain structure of the medical students had not changed. But students from the language studying group had enlarged their brain areas responsible for digestion of the new knowledge (hippocampus), long memory and spatialization.
It is also known as a fact that bilinguals have better capabilities for concentration.
Professor Viorica Marian from the Northwest University had been studying for a long time what impact foreign languages have on brain. Already fifteen years ago she noticed that people speaking more than one language can easier choose words. Due to their large vocabulary they can instantly truncate the “incorrect” options.
In her last study, Professor Marian decided to find out which processes take place in the human brain when they hear different words. She divided 20 volunteers into two groups: bilinguals and the ones that knew only one language. The professor used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to observe which brain areas became more active during solving the cognitive tasks.
Participants were told different words, for example “candy” and were asked to choose one picture out of four which had the image of candy and one more picture which had an image of the object sounded similar to candy, for example “candle”
MRI showed that some brain areas became more active during the process for people who knew only one language. This means they had to put more effort for choosing the right picture. “It works like a traffic light, – explains Viorica Marian. – For one language bilinguals always turn on the green light and for the other language – the red light. When you do this all the time, you learn to block the words that are not required.”
According to Professor Marian, this ability is useful not only for choosing words but also for making decisions in general. “Whether we drive a car or conduct a surgery, it is necessary to concentrate on the main event and ignore the bye.”
Scientists also assert that studying a foreign language improves the memory and musical skills, prevents from Alzheimer’s disease.
But I think besides the mental improvements, learning foreign languages has also a cultural aspect. As for the experiment, in my view it was well-conducted. Due to the fact that the trial was non-randomized, Professor Marian obtained the most accurate results; however, as always, the result could’ve been gained by chance, as there is always a possibility for a confounding variables and in addition, if increased the sample size, I believe Pr. Marian’s data would be even more stronger.
Ludwig Wittgenstain said: “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” In other words, when we learn foreign languages we enlarge our world. The more languages we speak the greater is the knowledge of the world. This gives us an opportunity to communicate and understand people from around the world, from different countries and different cultures.
Sources:
http://bibo.kz/hochu-znat/963942-inostrannyy-yazyk-i-razvitie-mozga-6-udivitelnyh-faktov.html
http://es-eschool.ru/blog_es/izvestnye-poligloty-znanie-yazykov-i-pamyat.html
http://medportal.ru/mednovosti/news/2014/11/13/001language/
Great blog! Because I am bilingual, I definitely think it is a greater advantage! Knowing more than one language allows you to connect with people from other cultures and try to understand their way of thinking. without people learning and interested in other languages, it would be hard to connect everyone and share things with others. I definitely agree that you are limiting yourself if you could only speak one language perfectly instead of multiple even if its not that great!
i personally think that the main boost for learning the language is the environment. you could’ve study one particular language for months or even years, but the most effective way is to study that language in the local environment.
learning a language, while being a child is much more effective than on the later stages, as their brain is open to new information unlike adults
This was so interesting! I have always thought about learning other languages. I took 5 years of Spanish throughout middle school and high school. I always loved learning the language, and learning about the culture. I think that learning a new language can definitely help your brain to grow. Some of the world’s most intelligent people speak multiple languages, and I do not think that this is a coincidence. I think language could be very powerful in developing children’s minds at a young age. If children are taught more than one, possibly three, languages at a time, their brains will grow. Because it is much harder to learn languages as an adult this man gives tips to other adults on how to learn language quickly. I think that these tips wold be super beneficial, and I would like to try them in the future! Thanks for sharing this article, I loved it!
I found this post very interesting as I come from a family who speaks multiple different languages. As I was growing up, my grandpa would teach me Norwegian, my other grandpa Polish and my grandma Irish. While I didn’t master any of these languages, I can successfully construct a proper introduction, and ask you how the weather is. In middle school, I took up both Spanish, then Latin. Now at Penn state, I have a roommate whose first language is Arabic and another who speaks Taiwanese. Now, we occasionally have language lessons, and it seems to me that out of all my roommates, I am the quickest to pick up on the other languages. Not significantly, maybe this is only because my knowledge of other languages sets a base for learning more and allows me to connect differences between them, but I do find the concept very interesting.
I would’ve liked this post to mention the changing in neurons in your brain while you develop. It has been discovered that we’re born with dozens of language receptors that eventually die after we do not use them to their fullest extent. While we are able to learn and exercise our brain throughout our lives, the most crucial developmental time is our first years of life, as many educators know. Even Dora The Explorer knew the importance of learning numerous languages at a young age. Today, many toy distributors offer multiple language settings on their toys, not only to increase their audience, but to allow kids to be exposed to these different languages they might not hear otherwise. I believe this article does a good job at describing the way the brain changes, which could further support the evidence you’ve shown here. I think it’d be interesting to study bilingual stroke victims’ times during rehabilitation versus those who only speak one language and see if those stronger neurons and brain receptors play a role in their development.
Your blog caught my attention and interesting me because i am bilingual. Knowing two different languages allows me to have a better understanding in the world just like you said in your blog and also a better way of connecting to other people and cultures. I believe that everyone should have the chance to learn a new language. In high school we have the option to be taught a different language but the problem is that by then it is even harder to learn how to speak it than it would have been if we learned when we were in elementary school. Studies show that the best time to learn a new language is between the ages of 6 and 7. This article even explains how children should start learning a new language as young as 3 years old! The younger the learner the better they grasp the concept. It even mentions a good point with young learners i never thought about, they are less likely to get embarrassed with pronunciation which leads to them not giving up after mispronouncing words in a different language.