Benefits of Being Bilingual
The language we speak shapes our thinking, our view of the world and our culture. To understand other people, other cultures it is important to be able to speak their language in order to deal with and understand them. This is especially important in todays global economy and ever-shrinking world. Every day, through international trade, through instant electronic media such as television and the Internet, and through fast, cheap international travel, our world becomes smaller, our neighbors become closer.
The advantages of learning a foreign language are many. A second language is useful in travel, in commerce and in cultural understanding and communication.
One of the many benefits of learning a second language is that doing so develops your mental capacity and exercises brain cells, forming new neural pathways. This can be very important in staying mentally active and in preventing age-related loss of brain cells and memory capacity, even in preventing Alzheimer’s disease.
Why is it important to learn a second language? It is truly said that you do not fully understand your own language until you learn another and begin to compare the differences, similarities and nuances. Also, it is needed to commuicate with others.
The U.S. has the fifth largest concentration of native Spanish speakers of any country in the world! Can you communicate with your Latino neighbors? In Spanish?
When is the best time to learn another language? When we are young, pre-puberty. When you start young it is much easier to gain the additional benefit of being bilingual. Bilingual people can use and think in either of two different languages, and speak either as a native speaker, without a discernable accent. That level of proficiency is difficult to achieve if you start learning later in life.
There are many benefits of studying a foreign language, and a number of methods to learn any language rapidly and easily. Before you start, it’s a good idea to first get a book or two on methodology for learning another language rapidly and mastering it quickly. You always make progress more rapidly when you learn how to study efficiently first.
Then get yourself an interactive-audio language-learning course. Learn conversation first, the way you learned English. You start with a few words and concepts, use them in conversation, speaking, asking questions and answering questions. Then build on that, adding new words and how to express more complex ideas.
When you first went off to school, you already spoke pretty good English. You knew how to communicate, to carry on a conversation, without much emphasis on the formal structure of the language at all. If someone had asked you, before you got to the third grade, “What is grammar?” you might well have replied, “The lady who lives with Grampa!”
- Jorge Chavez