- By Adebola Fatoyinbo
In today’s increasingly interdependent world, speaking a second language is an essential skill that gives you the ability to communicate and connect with people from all over the world in a quicker and more meaningful way. Connections are now more important than ever, considering the continual globaliiation of the world’s economy, and knowing a foreign language will always give you a significant advantage
Learning a new language undoubtedly helps your gray matter grow. Acquiring a new language means that you are going to learn a whole new set of rules of grammar and lexis. Nothing challenges the brain like learning a new language does. While your brain is trying to keep up with the new language’s complexities and take in the new patterns, new developments are happening in the brain. Just like muscles, the brain gets stronger and bigger the more you put it to use.
Scientists have established that we use the left side of the brain when speaking our native language. Whereas, second language usage is not limited to a specific hemisphere., it uses both of them, increasing the size of the white and grey matter of the brain.
There are tangible benefits to being bilingual—it can boost your creativity and self-esteem, improve your brain and memory functions, help in your career opportunities, as well as increase your understanding of the language you already speak.
Knowing a foreign language is not beneficial only to the brain; it also influences your level of creativity. As a person starts to learn a language, he gets familiar with the culture of the place where that language is spoken. The more you learn about new cultures, the more you will look at the world around you from different perspectives. The change of views will make you more original, elaborate, and flexible—all qualities of being a creative person. Learning a new language forces your brain to put words together in creative ways, which stimulates your brain and boosts your creativity. This creativity will spill over into other aspects of your life too.
With the human attention span seemingly narrowing more and more every day, according to many studies, deciding to learn a new language may be the antidote to this situation. Recent studies show that the average attention span of a person has reduced from 12 to eight seconds. Researchers suggest that learning a new language helps the brain maintain focus and block distractions. This is a result of regularly switching between languages.
When speaking, bilinguals or multilinguals are constantly switching between two or more languages in their head, and this juggling improves the brain’s ability to concentrate on one thing while ignoring other irrelevant information
With an ever-growing global economy and an increasingly diverse national population, speaking a second language is a desirable trait for many employers. From translating or creating documents to speaking with clients, employers need speakers of other languages on a daily basis.
In the highly competitive job market, many firms are opening offices overseas to extend their market. So, the need for bilingual candidates is greater than ever. By acquiring a foreign language, you will double the number of available jobs for you and climb the career ladder much faster.
Also, nowadays, people who are proficient in more than one language are high in demand in the job market in all sectors and industries, as the employers consider them to be better communicators and problem solvers. Skills that one master by acquiring a second language.
The mother tongue is learned intuitively and without any formal education. Being raised in a society where a particular language is spoken, children start to pick up the language they hear. However, learning another language is a whole different deal. From the beginning, you will get introduced to grammar, vocabulary, idioms, and sentence structure. As you learn more about the second language, you become more conscious of what you know in the first language. Then, you could not quite explain the abstract rules and language structure but learning a new language helps you put names to what you learned instinctively in the first language.
A new language opens the mind to new ideas and new challenges lead to personal growth. You may begin to see yourself and the world differently. With the English language being the world’s lingua franca, many English speakers may think it is not necessary to learn a new one but learning a foreign language never goes to a waste. You may use it while in a new country to communicate with the locals so they can help you find your destination or maybe feel at home after you moved there to teach English to non-English speakers. It may even help you in your job and your business travels. Knowing a second language means a whole new literature is in your hands and you can use it as you deem fit.