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However, other areas such as left parietal associative areas also participate in

language processing. Research has shown that the mother tongue generally has a

more central cortical representation in the left dominant hemisphere, while other

languages have a more extensive cortical representation than the first language.

The early (up to the age of seven) and simultaneous acquisition of several

languages determines a lateralization to the left hemisphere compared to the late

learning (after the seventh year of age) of a second or third language, in this case

their representation does not only concern the left dominant hemisphere, but also

the right hemisphere.

Studies have shown that the predisposition towards language learning depends on

the structure of the brain. In a survey it emerged that in learning a foreign

language, an area of the brain located near the left side of the insula comes into

play, home to the so-called “phonological memory”, a sort of rubric for temporarily

noting simple information. To conduct this study, the scientist looked at two English

/ Chinese bilingual groups who were equally good in both languages, the subjects

were native English speakers.

Researchers subjected the volunteers to a listening exercise for memorizing

uncommon French words or numbers. As the subjects performed the test, the

scientists observed real-time brain activity of the bilinguals with functional magnetic

resonance imaging.

It has been found that the brain of individuals during an auditory linguistic test

works in a different way: while in bilinguals who are very good in both English and

Chinese, the area of phonological memory is turned on more, in those who are

better in English this is less active and is replaced by the activity of other areas,

which concentrate the cognitive effort on the task performed.

It is therefore possible that short-term memory is more efficient in people prone to

learning languages easily.

A little bit of everything has been said about the right way to learn languages and

each of us, experience in hand, over time understands which strategy is best suited

to his path. There are those who learn the fundamentals and then leave and throw

themselves headlong into practice in a foreign country, those who master a new

language even “from home” because they have the opportunity to practice at work

and so on. On the other hand, learning a language requires various skills: a good

memory for vocabulary and the motivation to study to make grammar one’s own

are fundamental. It is at this point that the pages of books can turn into

conversation and into a real use of language, with its infinite possibilities.

Over the years, scientific research has also looked at language learning with its

magnifying glass, to understand what factors influence it. How much of nature

there is, therefore also the “genes” of languages, and how much of nurture,

experience, the environment in which you grow up. A line of research that is not

described as fascinating, especially since we know that learning a language involves

anatomical changes in our brains. It changes it, concretely: the more certain brain

areas are used, the more they grow and become “strong”, thanks to neuroplasticity.

A linguistic journey into the human brain

Recently, researchers from the Donders Institute and the Max Planck Institute for

Psycholinguistics have studied what happens in the human brain during learning,

using brain imaging techniques. No English, too banal: the investigation involved

Dutch native speakers while they were learning a fictitious language, “Alienese”.

First point: grammar. For those of us who have found ourselves in trouble, whether

it is learning Spanish or German, it will be comforting to know that our brains really

care to know if the grammar of the new language is similar to that of ours. In the

case of the alien, the researchers monitored the order of the words: since it was

different from that of the Dutch, the brain had to build a completely new “grammar

repertoire”, not being able to reuse the characteristics already learned.

Participants were shown the sentences in alienese along with images that

represented their meaning. The words used as an example were a handful,

proposed in groups such as josa (woman), komi (man) and oku (photograph).

Sentences were created by combining these words in different order, in order to

make them match or not with that expected for object, subject and verb in Danish

grammar. To better understand: if “komi oku josa” and “josa komi oku” both mean

that the man photographs the woman, only in the first version the word order is

“right” in Dutch (but also in English and Italian) , that is, subject, verb and object.

When the participants listened to the sentence in the wrong order for them, the

areas involved in using the mother tongue were activated more intensely in the

brain. With that in the right order, the opposite happened. According to Kirsten

Weber, first author of the work, it could be a mechanism that our brain uses to build

and strengthen a neural network in order to also process the “sequences” of new

words. Thus to the complex architecture that he already knows, and which comes

into play every day in speaking the mother tongue, a “plot” is gradually added also

for the new grammar.

According to a recent theory, moreover, these first approaches with a language

other than ours would determine the fate of our learning: a theory called “now or

never bottleneck”, deepened by psychologists Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater,

according to whom the brain processes linguistic inputs immediately (or never) so

that they are not overwritten, therefore lost, by subsequent inputs. A phenomenon

that according to the two experts is not limited to language learning, but takes

place in our brain in various circumstances.

“I have always been gifted for languages”

The growing amount of scientific information on the subject is a gold mine for

devising better strategies for learning. It is tantalizing to fantasize about a distant

future in which a tailor-made plan for learning English will be developed starting

from a scan of our brain (or maybe it will no longer be needed thanks to super-

technological simultaneous translators). A bit like personalized diets. In this

context, in fact, the leader is not so much a “gene of linguistic abilities” that

determines a predisposition, but the very structure of the brain. Even before

learning.

Already, the connections within the most fascinating organ of our body, those

revealed by brain imaging, can reveal who is more inclined to learn a second

language. The various regions of the brain communicate with each other even

while we are resting and we are not intent on any specific activity. The strength of

these connections is different from person to person and in the past it has been

repeatedly associated with differences concerning behavior but also some skills,

coincidentally also that of learning a new language.

This was confirmed by the observations of the group led by Denise Klein, a

researcher at McGill University, who tested the hypothesis on 15 adults of English

mother tongue before and after 12 weeks of intensive French course. Two in

particular the brain areas observed in their connections: the anterior insula / frontal

operculum (AI / FO) involved in verbal fluency and the visual word form area

(VWFA), in the left fusiform gyrus, which is activated during reading. Participants

with strong connections between AI / FO and the fusiform temporal gyrus, a key

region in the brain’s ‘language’ network, improved much more in conversation

during the course weeks. Those with stronger connections between VWFA and

another area – from the same region – have instead become quicker to read.

To conclude with encouraging tones, many studies on the human brain have

concluded that bilingual adults have greater activity in areas associated with

executive functions such as problem-solving, attention transfer and other rather

desirable traits. This characteristic, however, can already be observed at 11

months – therefore before mastering the language at all – in children who grow up

in homes where two languages are spoken. They still do not express themselves,

but they are already “practicing” and not only in speaking two languages: the

change affects the entire cognitive development. Compared to children who grow

up in a mono-language family, moreover, the bilingual ones have a brain that over

the years remains more “open” to learning new sounds. Not only are the very

young ones perfectly capable of learning multiple languages together (whatever the

ones they hear in their environment), they are also experiencing a phase of life in

which it is more effective and easier to start doing it.

Learning a language increases the size of the brain, removes dementia, improves

memory, improves attention and much, much more.

Learning a foreign language has always brought out great and baffling prejudices

about how it would negatively affect our minds and personalities.

An even more extreme and absurd point of view is that learning a language other

than one’s own causes a kind of schizophrenia or double personality.

Some studies seem to support the idea that learning two languages could be

problematic; early researchers noted that bilingual people tended to have more

limited vocabularies and slower access to words.

However, these minor myths and disadvantages have now been swept away by a

storm of new research showing the incredible psychological benefits of learning a

language. And these benefits go beyond being able to order a cup of coffee in Paris,

rather than asking where the station is in Berlin.

Contents [Hide]

1. Learning a language makes the brain grow

2. Learning a language keeps dementia away

3. Learning languages makes sounds heard better

4. If you learn a new language you become more sensitive to different languages

5. Boost your memory by learning a foreign language

6. Knowing a new language improves multi-tasking

7. More attention

8. Double brain activation

9. How to learn languages changes the view of the world

10. Improve your first language

How to learn a language

Studying a foreign language is exploring other cultures

1. Learning a language makes the brain grow

During language learning, the language centers in the brain grow. These results

confirm structural changes in brain regions known to serve language functions

during foreign language acquisition. (Mårtensson et al., 2012)

2. Learning a language keeps dementia away

Bilingualism delays Alzheimer’s disease by five years in predisposed individuals

(Craik et al., 2010). It seems incredible, but the studies that are still carried out

confirm this result. To understand, this research shows something incredible:

learning a languag