San Francisco, CA- An intensive study of foreign tongues stimulates the brain growth of the hippocampus and other positive effects, according to specialists and a study at the Swedish Academy.
The new findings note that the act of learning language also causes positive changes in other areas of the brain, as well as helps to prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
New recruits at the Swedish Academy study highly disciplined crash courses in complex languages. At the academy, young people followed a 13-month course in Arabic, Russian or Dari (language of the Afghan Tajiks). Newcomers were required to learn the language all day long, and intensively days days a week.
The results of the hard work was impressive and unexpected, involving active intellectual activity as well as the study of foreign languages. Researchers used a group of students from the Medical University of Umeå to control the research. Medics are known for their extensive studies, but the subject of their studies has nothing in common with foreign languages. Both groups took MRI tests before the experiment and after three months of active studies.
The surprising results showed that the structure of the brain of the control group remained unchanged. However, parts of the brain for those students who studied a foreign language increased in size. Researchers found the „growth“ of the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the deep structure of the brain responsible for the development of new knowledge, orientation in space, and the consolidation of short-term memory into long-term memory.
Johan Martensson, a researcher in psychology at Lund University in Sweden, said that they were surprised that different parts of the brain developed to different degrees depending on how well the students performed and how much effort they had to put in to keep up with the course.
The group of translator students also showed changes in areas of the cerebral cortex. it noted increased growth of the hippocampus and the superior temporal gyrus, resulting in better language skills than other students. Advanced students also showed growth in the middle frontal gyrus.
Scientists note that foreign language studies have a miraculous effect on the brain and that studies of unfamiliar languages make the brain work harder. In 2010, Israeli researchers found that reading in Arabic has the two hemispheres of the brain involved in the process. The same effect does not occur when reading in English or Hebrew, although Hebrew belongs to Semitic languages. In addition, the Arabic language shows such an influence only on the brains of those people who study this language. This includes children who just learn to write and foreigners studying Arabic in adulthood. Adult native speakers have only the right hemisphere involved in the reading process.
In 2004, neuroscientists at University College London, with the help of magnetic resonance imaging examined 105 people. Twenty-five of those people knew only the English language, 25 knew English and another European language, 33 were bilingual (having known a second language since childhood), and 22 came from other European countries and knew their native language in addition to English as a foreign language.
The scientists discovered that all test persons who knew two languages had increased density of the cerebral cortex in the lower part of the parietal lobe. Those changes were most evident in participants having spoke two languages from childhood.
Andrea Mechelli, lead researcher of the Institute of Neurology at UCL, said, „It means that older learners won’t be as fluent as people who learned earlier in life. They won’t be as good as early bilinguals who learned, for example, before the age of five or before the age of 10.“ However, despite this scientific conclusion, language learning can be beneficial in adulthood and even in old age.
American researchers say that employees who know a foreign language can cope with mental tasks better than those who speak only their native language. Bilingual people focus on relevant information better and ignore irrelevant information. Therefore, they perform better in tests of intellectual abilities and better achievements at work.
Researchers explained that the main advantage of cognitive bilingual people is the ability to engage in several cases at the same time. The brain is constantly trained by bilingual people’s ability to switch between two languages, in comparison to those who speak only one language and do not have this capability.
About Perkins Elementary:
Perkins Elementary helps kids and adults learn international languages like English, French, Italian, Spanish, etc. The Perkins Elementary website offers various ways, including videos, to have fun while learning a foreign language. Visit www.perkinselementary.com today to learn more.