What happens in the brain when we study languages?
Most of language learning takes place in the frontal lobe of the brain. What does it mean? The frontal lobe controls personality, problem solving, memory, language, judge and impulse. The left side of this lobe is based on language, whereas the right side focuses on other processes. Broca’s Area is located in the frontal lobe; this section involves language output, processing and understanding.
Language learning is also related to the executive functions. These are the brain functions that put in operation, organize, integrate and manage other functions. They enable people to measure mid and long term consequences of actions and planning the results. Not only do they allow people to assess actions when they are carried out, but also to make the necessary changes when they do not produce the desired result. They autoregulate emotions and motivation; they also have to do with planning and the ability to generate.
But then, what are the benefits of learning a language?
- It improves cognitive flexibility
Regarding a study carried out by The Journal of Neuroscience, adults who have learnt a language when they were young adapt easier to a new or unexpected circumstance and their brains are more efficient.
- It delays Alzheimer
It is proved that even though a bilingual person may have Alzheimer, these people have lower risk of developing this disease o it may be delayed from 4 to 5 years.
- The brain processes the words faster
The magazine Scientific American explains that the brain of bilinguals needs less time to process words as they spend less time in observing and assimilating those words that share the same morphological root in different languages.
- It improves the ability to change tasks
In a study carried out by two psychologists of Haifa University and the Department of Psychology of Carnegie Mello University discovered that bilinguals acquire a greater brain flexibility to change tasks.
- It improves the skill to make sensitive decisions
The magazine Psychological Studies proved that when someone thinks in another language there are more possibilities of making a sensitive decision in a problematic situation.
These are only some of the studies that prove the advantages of being a polyglot. Some time ago, The Economist publisher an article that put forward the question whether the different languages convey different personalities. It could not be actually stated that languages convey different personalities, but we may affirm that different languages show different ways of seeing the World, different cultures. Maybe this can be taken as a motivation for studying a new language.
Albariño 1187, CABA.