Do you want to be smarter? Enroll in language classes
GamingHave you ever seen the classic movie Witness for the Prosecution? Let me quote a dialogue between Sir Wilfred Roberts, the defense attorney, and Leonard Vole, the murder defendant.
Roberts: Mr. Vole I must tell you that I am not going to put her (Ms. Vole) on the witness stand.
To fly: Not these? Why not?
Roberts: Well, one thing is that she is a foreigner, not very familiar with the subtleties of our language. The prosecution could easily trip her up.
Even if one is not in the position of Mr. Vole and life does not depend on it, the above quote still demonstrates the importance of language and language classes. If you don’t know a language properly and have to interact with the people who speak it, you will have a hard time and will often be misunderstood.
There are many advantages to learning a second language. Below, I describe one of those benefits that was published in The New York Times.
A study by psychologists Ellen Bialystok and Michelle Martin-Rhee found that bilinguals (people who know two languages) are more efficient than monolinguals (people who only know one language) at solving certain types of mental puzzles.
In the study, bilingual and monolingual preschoolers were presented with red squares and blue circles on a computer screen. They were then asked to sort them into two digital bins, one of them was marked with a blue square and the other with a red circle.
Yes, the colors and shapes of the markings on the containers were deliberately reversed.
In the first task, the children were told to sort the shapes by color, that is, they were supposed to place the blue circles in the container marked with the blue square and the red squares in the container marked with the red circle.
Although they had to put squares in a circle and circles in a square, both groups of children did it quite easily.
But the difference between their thoughts was shown in the next task, which shows a crucial point for language classes.
The children were now asked to sort by shape, which was a bit more difficult because it required placing the figures in a container marked with an opposite color.
The study found that bilinguals performed the task faster than monolinguals!
In fact, many other studies only confirm such findings. They suggest that learning a different language improves the brain’s command system that directs the attention processes we use to plan, solve problems, and perform various other mentally demanding tasks.
Have you learned more than one language? Do you feel like it made you smarter? Leave a comment below.