Do you think to be able to speak more than one language can affect your brain? If you are wondering about the answer, the answer is ‘YES.’ According to certain studies, the conclusion was made that people who could speak more than one language could process information more efficiently than the people speaking a single language.
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So, how does being bilingual affect your brain? The most important organ of the body, the mind, can receive different stimulation when it deals with people who could speak multiple languages. Here are some unexceptional things that you will see in the bilingual people, which sharpens their brain.
1. Speaking more than one language can push creativity to its peak
First, let’s enter into the pros and cons of speaking English. English being a universal language has helped people with non-English backgrounds to be proficient in speaking two different languages. To know how to speak English has helped the non-native speakers to know a language other than their native language. According to the revelations of various studies, it is clear that bilingual people have heightened creativity.
Learning a new language could affect an individual and their career; it can make your problem-solving skills better. As per different studies, bilingual people seem more innovative than people speaking one language. They can pass the creativity test with ease.
2.Controlling what they speak
There are precise pieces of evidence that bilingual people can take control of their actions than the monolingual. For this, there is some neurocognitive control mechanism that gets involved. Hence, the control mechanism takes control of their language and its flow.
The people who are multilingual can also switch from one language to another in less time than the people who speak one language. Furthermore, bilingual people have a strong expression compared to monolinguals.
3. Speaking more than one language helps in Increased Environmental Awareness
The people who speak more than one language can express higher environmental awareness than monolingual people. People with this ability can process things happening in their environment.
They can respond to the external stimuli with the help of their verbal action. The toggles that their tongue requires helps them to sharpen their brain.
4. Higher Cognitive abilities due to speaking more than one language
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The brain becomes more active when a person can speak more than one language. The people with multi-lingual abilities can perform better on puzzles. Also, they have better performance in the speed tests.
As they can change from one mode to another quickly, they have the power to sharpen their problem solving and innovation skills. Moreover, they have an extraordinary ability to recognize shapes and colors.
5. Less Prone to Dementia
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The people speaking more than one language have less chance of memory loss and going through dementia in comparison to the monolingual people.
According to the scientists in St. Micheal Hospital, the bilingual people have cases of late dementia. This is because the functioning of the brain in the bilingual people is different in comparison to the monolingual.
6. More Focus and Easy-Switch between tasks
According to the studies at York University, the students who speak more than one language have a high concentration on their assignment. Because speaking more than one language requires focus, it gives rise to higher productivity. Any person with this ability can attain mental flexibility and can speak fluently.
Also, these people can force their brains for multi-tasking. As they already can switch between the languages, they prevail to move from one task to another in a natural way. Hence, it makes them acquire high flexibility.
Conclusion
The merits of being bilingual are clear. Even if there are limited proofs on how being bilingual help for mental success and sharpening the brain, the evidence that it increases the cognitive ability cannot be neglected. Using a second language can be beneficial for mental health as well as physical health too. At some times, it might have some economic benefits.
The relationship between language and culture helps bilingual people to have an open mind and connect to the world easily. Therefore, to understand the global society and to sharpen the brain, speaking more than one language is a vital need.
