Notes from a Mono-Glot

I was pretty motivated to learn Spanish when I was in school. Having traveled in Mexico with my family, and even just living in Southern California, I figured it would be useful. Helpful in getting jobs. And just all-around cool.

Europeans I met in fiction all spoke multiple languages, and being a polyglot automatically made them seem smart.

So I was motivated.

However, exposure to Spanish in elementary school, two solid academic years in junior high, four years in high school, and several more in college—and straight As in all these courses—yet all I can muster when asked if I speak Spanish is “Solo un poquito.” [Spanish – Only a little.]

Quel dommage! [French – What a pity!]

As a consequence of my own experience, I am not a big fan of “learning” a foreign language through worksheets, vocabulary tests, and conjugations on the blackboard. I've seen successes who have learned languages in school, but they generally achieved fluency through immersion programs in another country—situations in which they HAD to learn, or be hopelessly confused for months. A few success stories have been exceptions; I know a woman who supplemented her Spanish courses with Spanish-language soap operas and volunteer positions working with Spanish speaking adults.

Basically, it seems that children and adults who have real, actual reasons to learn another language do, and those who don't, don't.

Real, Actual Benefits of Bilingualism

There are several non-obvious benefits to speaking more than one language, research now tells us. (Yeah, I can't help wishing I had tried the Spanish soaps!) Here are a few highlights of recent findings:

• Bilingual people find it easier to learn another new language than do those who only speak one language. In other words, it's easier to go from 2 to 3 than to go from 1 to 2.

• Babies in bilingual homes retain an ability to figure out when speakers have switched languages based on visual cues only, but babies in monolingual homes lose the ability by age 8 months.

• Even those who have seemingly “lost” a second language (say, someone whose exposure to a second language ended at age 4) still retain important knowledge that allows them to easily relearn the language.

• Being bilingual helps slow certain aging processes of the mind.

Yeah, that last one is a doozy, isn't it?

Biligual to Polyglot
Researchers including Northwestern University's Viorica Marian found that children who learned two languages in their own home—either English and Mandarin or English and Spanish—learned more than twice as many vocabulary words in another language, unrelated to either Mandarin or Spanish, as did those who learned only English in their home. Marian believes that the bilingual advantage translates to other sorts of language learning as well.

Visual Input
Apparently all babies can tell when speakers switch to another language from watching the rhythms and shapes of the speakers' mouths—even when there is no audio to go along with these visual cues. Babies as young as four months old, whether from bilingual or monolingual homes, notice a switch. However, only the bilingual babies keep the skill. By eight months of age, babies from monolingual homes can no longer use visual cues alone to notice a shift in language. This report comes from the University of British Columbia and researcher Whitney Weikum with others.

Not Lost, After All
According to Jeffrey Bowers and other researchers from the University of Bristol, even unused languages are retained to some extent in the brain. The team studied native English speakers who had learned Hindi or Zulu as children when living abroad but no longer used the languages. The English speakers were tested to see if they still recognized vocabulary in the neglected languages. They didn't. Then they were trained to distinguish phonemes (sounds) of the neglected language—phonemes that were deliberately chosen because native English speakers find them very difficult to recognize. The English speakers with childhood exposure to the languages were able to quickly relearn and recognize the problematic phonemes.

The Doozy
Dr. Gitit Kavé and others at Tel Aviv University discovered that senior citizens who speak more languages test better for cognitive functioning. Being a polyglot isn't a surefire wonder-cure against aging minds, but multiple languages may provide a sort of exercise for the brain. Kave warns that causation has not been proven, but goes on to say that “[o]ther languages are good for you at any age. They allow for a flexibility of thought and a channel for understanding another culture better, as well as your own...”

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Well, I certainly wish my now-adult children and I had all these benefits coming, but although we have dabbled with Spanish, Italian, and ASL, we seem to be pretty solidly monolingual. However, younger parents, teachers, and homeschool teachers might consider these benefits of bilingualism. It would be nice if people in the U.S. had language learning opportunities earlier and better than those afforded me.

Wunderbare Idee! [German – Wonderful idea!]