Bilingualism Benefits

Speaking a second language can prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s. Being bilingual can improve someone’s skills and brain function. It can also increase your brain size and connectivity. If someone knows more than one language it can help protect their brain against aging and it can help if a second language is learned at a young age. Learning a second language can help people in many ways but the most important thing for people to learn a language is to better their health.

Having the ability to speak more than one language influences one’ life deeply. Speaking two or more languages can affect someone from being infants to old age. Bhattacharjee continues with, “The bilingual experience appears to influence the brain from infancy to old age (and there

As De Houwer summarizes, "There is no scientific evidence to date that hearing two or more languages leads to delays or disorders in language acquisition. Many, many children throughout the world grow up with two or more languages from infancy without showing any signs of language delays or disorder" (1999).

In the summer of 2017, a young man named Justin went to Mexico for the first time to visit family. Justin, speaking only English, struggled to communicate with those around him where the main language spoken in that country is Spanish. Here, being bilingual would sure be handy. Knowing more than one language, becomes beneficial in class, or when people are trying to communicate with each other, or possibly even to order food. Learning a second language should be mandatory for kids and also adults for the advantages they will earn, for a sense of belonging, and also to find ways of teaching others about another dialect.

Bilingualism makes you more open-minded and sensitive to others. You learn two languages. Most of the time, inflection on certain words and the way you say them may hurt or cause pain, rather than soothe and make happy. Social studies say that bilinguals have an enhanced awareness of other people’s points of view. They learn from early on in their learning of another language that some people take things differently.

Language is used every day in our everyday lives all over the world. Marian and Shook state that “language is used to communicate our thoughts and feelings, connect with others, identify culture, and understand the world around us” (Marian & Shook ,2012,para.1) There are many languages all over the world and some people understand more than one language such as understanding both English and Spanish. People that are Bilingual are exceptional in a way that they are intelligent, helpful, and have advantage openers.

The United States of America (U.S.) is a nation built of immigrants. These immigrants brought many diverse languages to the U.S.. The major languages of the U.S. besides English consist of Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, French, Vietnamese, German, and Korean. Although Multilingualism or bilingualism is uncommon in the U.S., it is common in other countries. Multilingualism or bilingualism people appear to acquire knowledge faster and have superior executive functions (Diamond). This concept was discussed in class and proves that learning another language can be extremely beneficial. Spanish is a great second language to learn due to the fact that it is the nations second most used language in the U.S.. The importance of Spanish-speaking is

Has it never crossed your mind how handy it would be to speak the language of the country you are being on vacations – let say Russian, Chinese, or (why not?), Kurdish. This is, indeed, a rhetorical question because wherever you are from, you have already had for sure a cross-cultural encounter that may had not worked as well as desired... If you grow up being bilingual, you probably know exactly about which transactional problems while speaking we are talking about, yet being bilingual has much more benefits than disadvantages. For instance, being bilingual or even multilingual is not only helpful for travelling or working but for your mental health. Psysiological studies show people speaking several languages are assessed as better while performing cognitive tasks .

These days there are more and more people who live in a country where other language than their home language is spoken. This could be due to different reasons, like immigration of the whole family or having married a person from another country. When children are involved most parents would like them to be bilingual, but this does not happen automatically. Some effort is required.

As the title suggests, “Speaking in Tongues: The Many Benefits of Bilingualism” is an article that examines the advantages of bilingualism. Due to the nature of the world, a great number of people have acquired the ability to speak more than one language. The author explores the benefits such an ability offers, arguing that bilingual children develop social, linguistic and cognitive skillsets that not only provides a chance to explore different cultures, but raises a child’s awareness of how language functions. The author also weighs on the cognitive aspect; applying the works of Ellen Bialystok to their ( the author’s ) argument. In the author’s view, bilingual children are better at dealing with conflicting cues and assessing information.

Speaking in multiple languages can not just help students for the modern world but also in academics and it helps with standing out of the rest. According to the Telegraph, “speaking a foreign language improves the functionality of your brain by challenging it to recognise, negotiate meaning, and communicate in different language systems”. This indicates that people that are multilingual use more of their brain than others that are monolingual, which can help them for solving problems in school

Having greater cognitive skills at their disposal enables bilingual children to outperform monolingual children in several tasks. Jeffrey Kluger writes in his article that, “Multilingual people, studies show, are better at reasoning, at multitasking, at grasping and reconciling different ideas,” (Kluger). Bilingualism affects the brain in several beneficial ways that put bilinguals in a very satisfying position compared to their monolingual peers. Further research by Jeffrey Kluger shows, “A bilingual brain...is proving to be a more flexible, more resourceful one,” (Kluger). By having more resourceful brains compared to monolinguals, bilinguals can perform tasks more efficiently. This results in benefits from nearly every action taken by a bilingual. However, the benefits in terms of the brain continue. A new, small study by Northwestern University researchers says, “People who speak two languages have enhanced hearing processing, which improves their attention and memory skills,” (Preidt). Enhanced hearing processing, which means the ability to filter out whatever one is listening to, in bilinguals results in being able to pay attention much more efficiently, thus resulting in a quick understanding of whatever one may be listening to. This enhanced processing occurs because of how being bilingual changes the way the nervous system responds to sound (Preidt). These changes come automatically from being bilingual and are further enhanced the more a person is fluent in their second language (Preidt). Viorica Marian, an expert in bilingualism and associate professor of communication sciences, says in a university news release, “It seems that the benefits of bilingualism are particularly powerful and broad, and include attention, inhibition and encoding of sound,” (Preidt). The attention,

In order to become a true bilingual, you must have a balance in your linguistic capabilities. Research indicates that the study of a second language during a child's early years results in cognitive benefits in areas such as mental flexibility, creativity, deviating thinking and higher-order thinking skills. Foreign language study has also been shown to improve listening skills and memory. Bilinguals are often more focused than monolinguals and mentally decline slower, researchers say. It also enhances problem solving and analytical skills, allows better formation of concepts, increases visual-social abilities and furthers logical reasoning. In short, bilingual children are more adept at linguistic processing than monolinguals.

Author of this journal article, Judith F. Kroll, a distinguished psychologist who focuses on language acquisition, tries to refute many of the myths revolving around multilingualism within humans. The human brain is an incredible organ and has far more plasticity that we know, and Kroll states that “Contrary to the view that the brain evolved to speak one language only, the evidence suggests that two or more languages coexist in the same brain networks, each language activating the other even when only one of the languages is in use” (Kroll). Kroll is claiming that learning a foreign language helps one’s brain work harder and keeps it active for longer periods of time, disproving the claim of how more than one language can negatively impact your brain and speech. Kroll’s primary form of support in this article is in the form of logical appeal where he uses many studies about the difference between bilingual, and non-bilingual adults and how their cognitive decline occurs at different rates. The following quote states that learning a second language can be beneficial and help prevent cognitive decline such as

Nowadays is important to speak more than one language for many reasons. In one hand we have that being bilingual leads you to new cultures, new friends and new knowledge. According to (Myers-Scotton, 2006) “Bilingualism is defined as speaking two or more languages with native-like ability” On the other hand “Multilingualism is also an interdisciplinary phenomenon that can be studied from both an individual and a societal perspective.” (Cenoz, 2013)