Does learning languages make you smarter?

Today, I want to talk about language learning and the brain.

How does it affect the brain?

How does the brain help us learn?

And of course I started with one of my earlier sort of forays into

reading up on how the brain learns in another language is this, of course,

book by Manfred Spitzer on Lernen, Gehirnforschung und die Schule des Lebens.

In it, he says, learning takes place in our brains, not in the classroom,

but wherever our brain is, wherever our heads are, that's where we are.

are learning the language.

We decide if we're going to learn, whether we go to a classroom or

don't go to a classroom, have a teacher or don't, it's our activities

using our brain that help us learn.

And in that regard, I have made mention in the past to this book by Jeffrey

Schwartz, The Mind and the Brain.

Or neuroplasticity and the power of mental force, where he demonstrates

that there is this sort of two levels in our brain, things that are happening

naturally, the circuitry, the interaction of neurons, and our will and our

determination and the things that we can do to control what happens in our brain.

And I think that's an important consideration when

it comes to language learning.

So I want to look at this issue of the brain sort of in three different levels.

What happens to the nuts and bolts, the details, the mechanics of

the brain of neurons interacting.

A second level is what learning a language does for our overall

cognitive abilities based on research.

And the third level is our emotions, the emotional benefits and the

interaction between our emotions and our ability to learn languages.

So.

Starting with the nuts and bolts.

So we now know that we continue to create new neurons, that neuroplasticity

continues throughout our lives, whereas there used to be this idea that,

you know, neuroplasticity slows down significantly or stops past a certain age.

Not the case.

And, Learning a language specifically, it's now been shown, increases

the gray matter in our brains.

And this is true for bilinguals, and it's true for people who

learn languages later in life.

There is an increased interaction.

between neurons strengthening of the gray matter, which has benefits

for all of our learning activities.

It's also been demonstrated now that the white matter, which is this, uh,

sort of casing of our neural connections in the brain, which facilitates

communication with different parts of the brain, And that's also very

important for our ability to learn things so that there's significant

benefit to learning a language.

I will leave a link or links to some of these articles that describe

the benefits of language learning.

Now, if we look back at what actually happens when we learn a

language, it has been described as a probabilistic error driven process.

Through magnetic resonance imaging, we now know that the brain, through being

bombarded with the language that the brain is learning, whether it be the

first language or subsequent languages, the brain anticipating what's going to

come, if what arrives in the language is in fact, runs counter to what was

expected, to the anticipation, to the prediction the brain made, that's an N400,

the brain spikes, P600, that also causes some kind of a reaction in the brain.

The net result of which is learning the brain, noticing things, presumably,

and I'm out of my depth here from a neuroscience point of view, but

the brain gradually accumulates stronger and stronger synapses, which

contribute to learning Donald Hebb, the famous Canadian psychologist, is.

Pointed out in the late 1940s that the firing of adjacent neurons is

what takes place when we learn things.

And there is a quote which is ascribed to him, uh, which says neurons

that fire together, wire together.

However, this is not what he said, and it slightly distorts what he said.

Because it implies that any random neurons will mutually fire, whereas

in fact it's more sequential.

One neuron firing triggers a response from another neuron,

and it can't just be random.

It has to be certain related neurons.

Again, I'm out of my depth, but this Hebbian learning is very much a part of

how we understand how the brain learns.

And part of that is that by encountering the language through massive listening

and reading, we are strengthening certain Synapses, certain connections,

increasing the gray matter, and doing things that enable us to learn

a language, but at the same time, improve our cognitive abilities.

So, on a second level then, once we get out from under the hood, and we look

at how, sort of, language learning, The effects are overall cognitive abilities.

There are studies that show that people who learn languages, even

after a relatively short period of time, and I'll leave the links in

the description box, they experienced this increased gray matter.

They are more creative.

They are better able to concentrate.

Their memory is improved, even though I believe that deliberate

memory Or memorization is not an important part of language learning.

Rather, it is through the process of digesting lots of input,

our ability to remember and to recall gradually is strengthened.

With regard to the strengthening of our ability to concentrate, I notice that when

I listen to something in a language other than English, on a subject of interest,

I focus more, so whether that is because my ability to focus has been increased

or because I'm paying more attention because it's in a different language,

I don't know, but I do notice that I learn better, assuming that my ability in

that language is of a sufficient level.

I also have noticed that by learning other languages, my ability in my own

language or in other languages improves.

I'm better.

I'm able to use words to construct my thoughts.

My vocabulary has increased.

All of these things are sort of cognitive benefits of learning other languages.

So for example, I enjoy reading about subject of interest in other languages.

So here's a book by the famous.

Portuguese neuroscientist who is a leading proponent of the importance of

our emotions as a driver and as a decisive factor in our cognitive abilities.

I mentioned the book that I read by Spitzer in German, and I've also read up

in French and probably in other languages, but these are the books that I went and

grabbed in my library and it's full of dog earrings and underlinings and so forth.

And I find that I'm better able than to focus on this

subject if I'm doing it through.

Another language.

So that's another benefit.

So we're talking about sort of the nuts and bolts of what

happens when we learn a language.

We talked a bit about the impact of language learning on our

cognitive abilities generally.

Again, I take it with a bit of a grain of salt because I don't like to claim

that language learners therefore are more intelligent or sharper than other people,

but these are examples of serious research that has been done on the subject.

So now we come to the third impact on the brain or the sort of

interaction between the brain and the process of language learning.

And that is at the level of our emotions.

So initially, of course, if we want to learn the language, if we like the

language, if we enjoy the process of learning, we're likely to do better

so that the, our emotions and our feelings are a great sort of source of

the energy and even cognitive ability that we need to learn a language.

On the other hand, because we can now access so much.

Wonderful information in whatever language we're learning through YouTube, through

podcasts, through audiobooks, through text we find on the internet, that

we can use these as learning content.

And there, there's a tremendous sense of Satisfaction and power as we are reading

something or listening to something on history, on cooking, on whatever

interests us in another language.

We're learning the language, not consciously learning the language, but

nevertheless working on the language while we're learning about a subject

of interest in that other language.

It gives, at least me, a great sense of satisfaction and

it drives me to keep going.

And I think we also end up where if we are able to view the world like

history or even political podcasts from a variety of perspectives, where people

who speak a certain language are no longer sort of caricatures in our minds.

We can actually almost put ourselves in their position.

We achieve a perspective, a higher perch from which to look at things

that are happening in our lives.

And I think that's also.

A tremendous, you know, very satisfying feeling to have so that we get rewarded.

We put positive feelings into learning languages and we are

rewarded with positive feelings from learning the language.

So just to sort of describe this interaction between the brain and

language learning in a way, putting ourselves outside the activity of our

brain, yet realizing that we can't do that because we can only think

about the brain using our brain.

And so I hope that's somehow of interest and I look forward

to discussing it further.

And I leave you with a video that I did about 10 years ago when I attended

a conference of linguistics experts, where they talked about this N400, P600.

And at that time, I understood even less of what they were

talking about than I do now, and another video on a related subject.

Thank you for listening.

Bye for now.