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Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Croeso and Welcome.
Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today I’m talking about…
What are the benefits of learning another language?
Or, more accurately, some of the benefits, because there are bound to be more.
Let’s start with something that’s less obvious: memory. Improving it. Keeping it in good shape and all that good stuff. All learning, taxing your brain helps with the memory function, and learning a language is no different, except when learning a language you’re not just studying a topic, you’re learning to connect another language with your language, which is another whole level of complexity to flex your brain muscles. What? If you can have muscle memory, why can’t you have brain muscles? Alright, brain connections. Brain activity is good. It stops you from mentally stagnating. It stops you from being bored and being boring - you know, that saying that says only boring people are bored. Some people even say keeping your brain active holds off dementia.
You can improve your grammar knowledge in your own language. Okay, that sounds a bit back to front, but hear me out. It’s true. My case may be somewhat unique, but it’s true of anyone.
Many of you won’t have gone back to the old episodes of this podcast, so I’ll just give you a quick summary of my long-ago life experience. When I was at school we deliberately weren’t taught grammar in English (great experiment that was), so I gained most of my grammar knowledge from learning foreign languages, because they didn’t restrict that learning there. Ridiculous, really, when you have to learn foreign languages as part of the curriculum, but that was how it was. I still learn things about grammar that I never knew, even now, some unmentionable number of years later. However, I frequently don’t know what something is called. Yes, I’m okay with verbs, pronouns and that kind of thing, but when you get onto similies, synonyms and the like I’d be hard pressed to tell you what the differences are. It just won’t go into my head and stay there now, but I’m okay with that. So, learning a foreign language can definitely improve your knowledge of grammar in your own language, no question.
You learn about another culture. You can’t help doing this, even if you’re not specifically trying to do it. Just the way people express themselves in their language tells you something about their culture. Don’t believe me? Let’s think of an example. If there are a lot of sayings in the language that use fish as an element, you can be sure the people in that country eat a lot of fish. If a language has a formal you, as well as an informal you, you can bet their culture has elements that are much more formal than here in England. Of course, you do have to notice these things, but learning a language is all about noticing things. If you don’t notice things, you’ll probably have a hard time with your studying. But, you can also, as a part of your learning, make it a goal to learn about the culture, by specifically using that type of material as your comprehensible input. And you probably should, as it will expand your mind.
Which kind of brings me onto the fact that learning a language could even change your mind about things you thought you believed. If you find out people in a different country do something in a different way, or think about something differently, you might find that you’ve been doing things in a really weird way, or that what you think really isn’t right. At the very least, you might have a debate with yourself about such subjects, which is never a bad thing. You should change your mind about things as you go through life and you get more experience. No one wants to be a stick-in-the-mud, do they? Do they? Languages can absolutely help you with that.
Keeping on the subject of culture, you will eventually be able to consume media in that language. I’m thinking principally about books, for myself, because that’s what I enjoy, but you can include films and TV and YouTube and Newspapers and blogs, etc. But back to books, because this is my podcast and that’s what I want to talk about. If you’re really into classic literature, you can see how other countries did things differently, back then, whenever back then is, but I much prefer reading contemporary literature, because the language is easier to understand and it tells you more about contemporary culture, about what people are thinking now. Of course, if you only ever read works translated into your target language, that’s never going to happen. Just something to bear in mind.
And, of course, there are the more obvious things. Learning a language can open up life possibilities, like living in that country, for example, or even just conversing with people from that country over the Internet, in their own language. Both of these would be difficult if you didn’t speak the language, not to say that you couldn’t do them, but learning a language makes it a heck of a lot easier.
That’s all for today’s episode. Don’t forget to join me again next time, for more language learning tips, tricks and tales and in the meantime, check out the A Language Learning Tale YouTube channel for additional, non-podcast content.
Ciao, salut, adiós, hwyl and bye for now.