Benefits of a Bilingual Brain

Hey everyone and welcome back to my simple English podcast. The podcast which helps you to learn the English language. by listening to slow and understandable English. How are you doing? I hope you are well. I am in a very good mood. I am very happy because I have... Actually, a new microphone. Maybe you can hear the sound for this podcast. The audio sounds better. That is because I have a new microphone.

And this microphone was actually a gift. A good friend of mine gave it to me as a gift. My friend Davide in Italy. Ciao Davide if you're listening. Thank you. Thank you very much. And so I'm very happy to be recording this. I hope you can hear the difference. I hope also that you enjoyed my last episode of the podcast, you liked it, where I spoke about my experience with foreign languages, what I think about foreign languages.

in this episode we will speak more about languages and learning languages but this time a bit more generally about the benefits of learning languages, some of the good things that can happen as a result of learning languages and being bilingual. So without further ado, let's let's get into it So what benefits what good things can we say come with language learning well one interesting benefit one interesting good effect of learning a language is actually improved memory

It can help you to remember things. We have a saying in English, use it or lose it. I don't know if you have heard that before. Use it or lose it. It is quite... cringy, you could say. I don't know, people say it a lot and it can get a little bit annoying. But use it or lose it. Well, what does it mean? It means that...

Normally when we talk about doing sport, doing physical exercise, you are using your muscles. That is really good and it will help you to grow those muscles and to keep those muscles. if however you stay at home for 10 days like me with coronavirus and do not use your muscles then you might lose your muscles you will become less fit and you will maybe maybe even lose your physical muscles atrophy but

The interesting thing is that the brain, your brain in your head that you use Do Think, actually works in a similar way. If you use your brain a lot... then you will have a better memory. And if you do not use it so much, then you will start to lose your memory. There is a disease, an illness, a sickness called dementia. In English, I don't know if you have heard of dementia before. Maybe you know somebody who has dementia because it is a disease where...

You start to forget things. People who have dementia forget lots of things. They become very forgetful. What do you say? Forgetful adjective. And they cannot remember. Many, many things. Now, the average age that somebody will get dementia, that somebody will start to lose their memory, is 71. 71. years old. But that is 71 years old if you are monolingual, if you only speak one language.

So if you speak one language, you can expect to get dementia around the age of 71. But if you are bilingual, if you speak multiple languages... well, two languages or multilingual, you speak multiple languages, lots of languages, then the average age to get dementia is 76. So that is five years later, 71.

if you're monolingual, 76 if you're bilingual. That is really interesting because that shows that speaking another language and, I don't know, remembering... words in another language, remembering the grammar, remembering different aspects of the language, helps you to use your brain and use your memory. so that you will not lose your memory. It can delay dementia. It means it will take longer to get dementia.

if you speak multiple languages, which is really good. I don't know if you're in school or in university as well. This could help because if you have exams... You have tests that you have to... complete, then it is important that you have a good memory so that you remember the answers. So learning another language can help you with this. Another interesting benefit of being bilingual is actually related to multitasking, multitasking and interesting.

English word. I don't know if you have an equivalent in your language if you have a word that has a similar meaning but it means doing two things. At the same time doing two things at once to multitask. I don't know. I multitask when I brush my teeth.

and get dressed at the same time i don't know but in real life and in work multitasking can be stressful and challenging um if you think about it when you are really stressed in your life it is likely because you are trying to multitask you're trying to do lots of things

at the same time and balance lots of things. But a study from the University of Pennsylvania So a university in America did a study with test subjects and they showed that bilingual people, so people... who speak multiple languages, people who have a bilingual brain can switch between two systems of thinking, two systems of speaking.

And they can switch between the two systems very quickly. So it can go from one language to another very quickly. And what that meant is that these test subjects who were bilingual, these people who were bilingual,

were able to multitask better. They were able to multitask more efficiently. And when they were... performing these tasks when they were doing different tasks and multitasking and doing different tasks at the same time the bilingual people had lower levels of stress they were less stressed

which is quite interesting. So maybe if you are bilingual, the sort of... If you are bilingual, it means your brain is good at... switching between two systems and it is good at multitasking which can help you in in life now the next benefit um that i found

is I think my favourite benefit. Well, maybe. It's very interesting. And that is that when you speak a foreign language, when you learn a foreign language... It actually helps you to speak your own language better. Have you noticed that, maybe, since you have been learning English? It actually... helps you to speak your native language your your mother tongue your maternal language better maybe you are more aware of different

things in the language, you are more aware of the grammar, perhaps you notice different idioms. And actually, I know, especially for me, when I learnt French, um it actually taught me new vocabulary in english because there are a lot of words in french that are very similar to english they the words come from latin and we actually use these words in english but they are sometimes quite technical words, quite specific words related to a very specific subject.

and so learning french and seeing these words actually taught me new words in english um which i think is is really cool um so yeah that's another benefit of learning a foreign language is it can help you to speak your own language better so As we have seen, learning a foreign language, learning English in your case, has some benefits for your brain. It can make your brain more healthy. which is really good. But I think the most important benefits are outside of science and they're outside of...

the brain itself, I think the most important benefits of learning a foreign language are really for your life. As I'm sure you know already, learning a new language helps you to experience and to learn about new cultures. You can learn about different people, different... backgrounds that you can relate to, learn about different history, maybe it gives you access, it means you are able to read in another language.

read books in that language, or watch films in that language, listen to music. I know English, English music is very popular all over the world and when you learn English then you can understand the words and you can I don't know you can sing sing along if you want of course also it lets you talk to new people you can make friends from All over the world, you can make friends with people who speak another language. I think this is amazing, I know.

for me learning just learning French and learning Greek and now learning Italian, I have made friends in those languages and it is really amazing because I would not have been able to meet these people, I would not have these friends. without that language especially if you're learning English you will be able to meet so many people it is really really good and it means when you when you travel

if you like travelling, like me. I love travelling. But when you travel, when you go to other countries, you are not just a tourist. What do I mean by that? I mean... you are not just there as an outsider to visit but if you speak the local language and you can speak to the local people and you can become friends with the local people This can help you to really see what the place is like. It can help you to really become a part of that place.

place where you're traveling to, and see it how the local people see it, instead of just seeing the place from the perspective of a tourist, the perspective of someone. from the outside which i think is amazing and you can learn so much in this way it also of course can help you in your career

I think learning English is very valuable for a lot of jobs these days. Many, many jobs, many employers like you to speak English. It is really, really... useful because again it means you can communicate with with people all around the world i think these are really very important benefits and these are probably the reasons why you are learning english um but um i think there are other benefits too i mean personally

I love languages. I love the process of learning a language. I find it so interesting to learn about... new words, new vocabulary. There is something I really love. It is called etymology. I don't know if you have heard that word before, etymology, but it means sort of where words... come from do you understand where um the origins of different words maybe are this word comes from greek or this word comes from latin and then it has changed in this way

i find that so interesting and for me learning languages is really thrilling and languages are very linked to history as well you can learn a lot about the history of a country uh by learning its language because the history is often reflected in that language that's a nice uh nice metaphor there it is reflected um if you don't know what that word is then if you walk into a room and there is a mirror and you see yourself in the mirror you are looking at your reflection so when we say this is

the history is reflected in the language it means you can see the history in in the language thanks to the language so it is very very interesting i think um i have gone a little bit off topic there

I have spoken a little bit too much but I hope you can see that really I love languages, I love learning foreign languages and I think you should too. Yeah, I really do. Well, that is the end of this episode. Thank you for listening. I would like to know what is your opinion? What do you think? What are some important benefits of learning?

foreign language of course this i have not uh talked about all the benefits all the good things there are there are many many other things um why why do you like learning languages and what what has been interesting for you in your experience learning English. I would like to know if you tell me, maybe in the comments, or if you leave a review on Apple Podcast.

If you could leave a review as well and leave five stars, that would be very kind. I would appreciate that very much. If you don't like the podcast, then... Please don't leave a review. Thanks. But if you are enjoying it, please do leave a review because that will help other people to find it and it will help me. a lot as well i thank you once again for listening and i hope you have a an excellent day an excellent evening whenever you're listening to this and you will hear from me soon Bye-bye.