Full transcript of “5 Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 The cognitive benefits of being by lingual. We are surrounded by language nearly every waking moment of our lives. We use language to communicate our thoughts and feelings to connect with others and identify with our culture and to understand the world around us. And for many people, this rich linguistic environment involves not just one language, but two or more. But, is there any real benefit to being multilingual? And what are the best techniques and resources for learning a new language? This is exactly what we will be discussing today. Welcome back Kwik Brains. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Research
0:46 has shown that the majority of the world's population is multilingual. In a survey conducted by the European Commission in 2006, 56% of respondents reported being able to speak in one other language besides their mother tongue. In this episode, we'll look at the impact of being multilingual can have on key brain functions like concentration, memory, task switching, creativity, and even cognitive decline. You'll also get practical tips on effective techniques for quickly picking up new languages and I'll share two resources that can support this. Let's open up those neuropathways and become more multilingual. How does being
1:32 multilingual affect your cognitive skills? Bilingual adults have increased white matter integrity and denser gray matter compared to adults who only speak one language, which means their second language experience boosts the brains overall reserves. Here are five ways learning languages can improve your cognitive skills. Number one, deepening your concentration skills. It has been found that learning a new language for just five hours per week shows a positive impact on students' levels of alertness and focus after just one week of practice. Number two, better memory retention. Who doesn't want that? Studying a language
2:19 engages memorization skills as well as recall and improves both short term and long term memory. So it's no surprise that people who regularly use a second language have more potentially powerful memory. In fact, research shows that people who speak a second language regularly perform better on memory tests than monolingual people do. Number three, better attention and task switching capacities. A bilingual brain has developed ability to inhibit one language while using another. This means that when a bilingual person uses one language, the other is active at the same time. For example, when you hear a word, you don't actually hear the entire word
3:09 all at once. The sounds arrive in sequential order and the brain's language system begins to guess what the word might be by activating lots of words that match the signal. And this happens long before you have ever finished the word. For bilingual people, this activation is not limited to a single language. The auditory input activates corresponding words across all the languages you know. Next, higher creativity levels. Researchers across different studies have found that bilingual children exhibit more creativity in problem solving, decision-making, and having a more flexible attitude and approach to things than their monolingual
3:59 peers. The same is also true for learners of a second language. Next, protection against cognitive decline. This is something I'm very passionate about. Many of you know that my grandmother passed of Alzheimer's. You don't have to be a certain age to benefit from being bilingual. For example, bilingual seniors can experience less cognitive decline and students who are learning a second language later in life can still benefit from some of the neurological changes, no matter what level they are at. As we already know, having new experiences or novelty is a very important factor in forming new connections in the brain. We
4:45 talk a lot about neuroplasticity. Studying a new language combines novelty with practice and this combination is one of the reasons that language learning is such an effective brain workout and protects older learners against dementia and other neurological conditions. In order to maintain these links and connections, you have to practice regularly. Remember consistency compounds. What are some of the learning techniques for languages to learn them fast and remembering them? This is one of the most asked questions when it comes to learning a new language. And I will share with you a few techniques that you could use for this. We go through many of these in our quick recall program, their whole modules on language and
5:31 learnings to accelerate your ability to learn another language. Highlights some of them here, but if you want more in depth, go to quickweakall.com. All right, so the first one is word substitution. This is a method that can be used for both memorizing vocabulary and foreign language words. So word substitution is when you take a word that you don't yet know and you want to know and you come up with an image that is more easily memorable. And then you attach this image or substitution to the new word. So a quick example, if you want to take a word like butterfly in Spanish, Mariposa, you would take the word and what does it sound like? For me, it
6:17 sounds like Mary posing and who is Mary posing with a butterfly? Simple image, right? But these are examples of using your creative mind because what you tend to see, you tend to remember. Also, it adds some emotion to it and it makes it more playful. So that's something you could do. If you want to take a word like in Spanish, if we're talking about learning Spanish as a second language, how do you say eggs in Spanish? Wave-os, right? So if you just imagine looking at the water and there are all these waves and there are these oes in the waves and what are you tossing in the oes? Eggs, right? So that being example, a simple example of word substitution, we go way deeper in our quick recall program with
7:04 many, many examples and many different languages. So this new word sound, it helps to break it down into syllables, right? You visualize the word in action and you could break it down to the sounds. Would you like to have an owner's manual for your brain that could help you unlock all of its powers and abilities? I want to introduce you to a limitless mind course, a transformative journey designed to show you exactly how to operate your brain for greater success in all areas of life. In just 21 days, you'll activate expert level of memory. Read faster than you could ever imagine, significantly enhance your focus and gain a competitive advantage with your productivity. The limitless mind course is packed with easy to watch video lessons
7:54 that cover proven tips, tools and strategies plus digital worksheets tailored for your ultimate learning experience. Join thousands who have transformed their cognitive abilities and opened doors to incredible opportunities. Just visit the limitlessline.com to start your journey today. Another technique that we teach in quick recall is called spaced repetition. What is that? Spaced repetition follows the approach of repeating a list of words every few hours or days instead of repeating them 100 times at once in one day. And what this technique helps, it helps to transfer information from your short term memory to your long term memory. It might take a little more time, but it's really smart
8:45 repetition. Imagine revisiting your notes or your flashcards an hour later, a day later, a week later, and a month later. It helps you to consolidate that short to long term memory. There was a team of researchers that studied a group of language learners over a nine year period and found that increasing both the number of repetitions and the length between study intervals, improve retention and memory of that new language. Next, learning words within the context. Students often learn new vocabulary in isolation where they are provided with a list of words and expected to learn them. This usually involves creating a list of
9:32 two columns. One column for the word in foreign language and another column in their mother tongue. Such drill and repetition exercises often only work for a few, but for many, the words just, they really don't stick. One way to improve your recall of words that you learn is to encourage students to place the words in the appropriate context. Remember, there's content. If content is king, the context is the kingdom. So place the words in an appropriate context. What does that mean? This might be a short example sentence that shows the word being used, or it could even be a simple word association. As an additional benefit, this technique
10:19 also helps students to recall and reiterate the correct use of the word in a sentence, and not just that waveos is the Spanish word for eggs. Another technique is using music. Playing music in the background while you're studying classical music, specifically the broke era helps to put you in what they call an alpha state. That's the relaxed state of awareness. Imagine you become like a sponge that absorbs information better. It harmonizes with the resting heart rate 60 beats per minute. So look into classical music, specifically from the broke era. Vivaldi, Handal, here's another technique is immersion. One of the best ways of
11:05 learning something is to deeply immerse yourself. Now, this might be arguably the most fun way to learn a language. When you can visit a place where the native language is the one that you want to learn, and it's a very effective way, obviously, of learning. Being located in a foreign country creates a sense of urgency because of the need to communicate with people around you, and the language also is proven to be easier to take in within the context of the culture that is surrounding it. As a bonus, interacting with natives will teach you the common slang and the specific nuances of a language as opposed to the quote unquote textbook version. There are clubs in most cities where you could go to dinner, and
11:50 specifically you can't speak your primary language and it forces you to immerse. Or you could watch shows in your favorite language or music in your favorite language. This is a way of immersing yourself if you can't travel. The most important thing is to make learning anything more fun. You want to add joy to it, playfulness, and of course learning is messy just like life, but just going through that little bit of challenge that creates change. So here are two two resources that I'm transparently not affiliated with. You could go online and look for a rehearsal app for running lines on your own. I don't have a one that I recommend specifically, but there are rehearsal apps that allow you to practice this language learning. There's one called DuLingo for learning a new language from
12:39 scratch. This is an app that many people in our community use individually to get the most out of learning anything from Spanish to Mandarin. The third bonus one I'll give you is join our quick recall program. Quick recall really is the flagship memory improvement program. We have students in every country in the world, and we go way in depth on how to improve your memory, take care of your brain, how to learn a new language. If you want to find out more information, just go to quickrecall.com. I really encourage it. This is my favorite program that we have quick recall, k-w-i-k-recall.com. So in conclusion, whether you're a learner or maybe you're a teacher of other languages, you're building skills, exercising your
13:25 brain, and you're building your cognitive reserves every time you speak a second language. And remember, learning is not a spectator's sport. So practice your new language skills at every opportunity. Whether it's your reading a book, your listening to music, your watching a movie in this new language, or if you have the opportunity to be able to travel to this place or this country where that language is spoken. So I hope you enjoyed this quick episode and which language are you most excited about? Post it on social media, make sure you tag me at JimQuick. I'll repost some of them at random and some of our favorites always and make sure you subscribe. Especially if you're watching this on YouTube where we put the
14:12 extended version of our episodes beyond 20 minutes that we do for the audio. Join 1.5 million subscribers there and how do we become limitless in a limited world? We do it together. I'll see in our next episode. This is your brain coach, JimQuick. Be limitless.
