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Welcome to the A to Z English podcast.
My name is Jack, and I'm here with my co-host, Sochil.
And today, we are doing a topic talk,
and the topic of today's conversation is,
why you are never too old to learn a language.
And Sochil, I just went online and did a little bit of research,
and I found five pretty interesting reasons why
you're never too old to learn a language.
And the first one is about neuroplasticity.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, and it says here,
while it's true that children often have an easier time picking up languages
due to their brain's high level of neuroplasticity,
which means ability to adapt and change,
adults can still learn new languages effectively.
Research has shown that the adult brain remains capable of forming
new neural connections,
and adapting to new linguistic challenges
albeit at a different pace than children.
So it's not like we have zero ability to learn a language
and build new neural pathways,
but it's not the same as when we're like in the critical age,
whatever that might be, five to three years old to 13 years old,
or whatever.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Okay, I think that's very interesting.
I've heard before on theories that if you learn two or more languages
as a balanced bilingual from childhood,
that you're also more able to pick up new languages,
but even if you hadn't,
even if you are a monolingual
and you never learned more than one language growing up,
I think research shows that adults,
it's beginning to show at an increasing rate
that adults still retain quite a bit of neuroplasticity, right?
So I think,
yeah, that just gives you every more reason
to have faith that you can learn another language,
a lot of the world has like up on us
because they have learned two or more languages
from a young age.
Yeah, and this one kind of dovetails nicely
connects with one later,
which is cognitive benefits.
Like holding off dimensions, stuff like that,
is creating new neural pathways in your brain.
So neurons are making new connections,
is a good thing.
Like it's a good practice.
It's like exercise for your brain.
You know, it's working out your brain.
So yeah, definitely a good thing.
And I also wanted to say one more thing about what you said,
about bilingual children,
because my daughter is a balanced bilingual,
just like you are.
And I think there's something that children learn early
that we don't, that I didn't learn until I was older.
And that is that language is arbitrary.
And what arbitrary means is there's no reason
for anything to be called anything.
Like tree is just a sound that we decided
as English speakers to mean tree.
But it means nothing to a Spanish speaker.
It might even mean something else.
Like if one word might mean something completely different
in another language.
Exactly, exactly.
Those are called false cognates, I believe.
You know, when they don't line,
they sound the same, but they're totally unrelated.
And I think that you learned, you know,
when you were young, you're like,
oh, table is table.
And table is also the Spanish word for table is mesa.
If I'm not mistaken.
So you've got two words and you're like,
oh, okay, so things can have multiple names,
depending on their cultural significance.
And you learned that just probably before you even knew
you learned it, you knew that.
And my daughter.
That was a fact of life, basically.
You don't really think about it too much.
Yeah, and in my little tiny English speaking world
where I'm a monolingual person,
I probably was like, you know, a teenager
when I had that epiphany.
Like, oh, the world is not all table is not
just the universal term for, you know, table.
It was always been a table since the beginning of time, you know.
So you just don't, you don't get that epiphany,
that realization until later.
Number two, life experience.
This one, I'll just read the first sentence.
What's bringing a wealth of life experience to the language learning process?
So what do you think about that?
Like, just like life experience?
Um, I think life experience can help you in any way,
because if you already have practice studying other things like
in university or high school,
then you probably already know how to study.
And that helps a lot.
Like you gave a tip in an earlier episode about writing things down
and how that helps retain information.
And for example, things like flashcards,
you'll have all those tools at your disposal
and you'll be way more organized.
So I think that will definitely help.
And, um, it's also something to look forward to.
In the sense that it'll open your life experiences too.
Like you'll have way more experiences and be able to
appreciate cultures at a different level.
If you speak another language fluently.
I see it as like this, like beautiful, um,
At Parker, our purpose is simple.
We want to make the world a better place.
By working more efficiently.
By using more sustainable practices.
By developing better technologies.
We keep moving forward.
With each new idea, innovation and partnership.
We're one step closer to fulfilling our purpose every single day.
To find out more, visit parker.com-slash-purpose.
Parker, engineering your success.
Secret skeleton key to an entire,
entirely new world.
Like you put it in, you open that door.
And it's like the Wizard of Oz.
Like you're walking into another world that you can understand.
You know, without that, without the language,
you're missing just so much.
It's so, it's so, it's so dull and, and dreary.
And, and you, you can't really appreciate it.
Um, I'm expecting Apple.
Sorry. Good.
No, you go ahead. You go ahead.
I was going to say it's like when you go to the grocery store in the US.
There's like a wax cap on the apples.
Like there's a thin wax on it.
And then you can wash and hot water melted away.
And the apple tastes way better.
That's like the language.
Like you can see the culture and.
Appreciate it to some extent, but that whole flavorful life of a culture
that you can appreciate with language is locked away underneath that wax cap.
That's a great, that's exactly right.
There you go. Perfect metaphor.
Um, so yeah, life experience learning a language.
Number three, um, diverse learning resources.
So access to information and knowledge that you might not have.
Um, had available to you in without being able to understand.
And you know, in without being able to speak that second language,
that new language.
Yeah, I definitely agree that's another thing.
I see a lot with like my Grinter actually see a lot with my family.
They my mom speaks good English.
My aunts English is.
Is kind of mediocre and she struggles.
With it's like a whole world in the US that's locked away from her as far as the resources and being able to navigate certain things on her own.
Because her English lacks.
And so, um, that's not really her fault.
It's very hard to work a full time job and learn a new language when you move to a new country at the same time.
Really struggled with that in Korea, you know.
But again, it does really hinder you from being able to navigate things independently.
The way that you would in your home country.
Now you gave us some really good examples a while back in in older in older.
In older episodes about like.
Remedies your mom has these like certain remedies from her region of a Mexico where she grew up.
And like there would be no without without your mom's you know as a as a gateway to that information and your mom and your in your grandparents.
Um, that information that knowledge would be totally locked away from you.
Right.
And you said like, oh, when you have a stomach ache, your mom would make a certain herbal.
Potion, you know, kind of thing or whatever.
Yeah, I'm sorry, potion sounds more magical.
No, you're finally different caution.
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
And I think that that wisdom there's like a lot of wisdom that is locked into language.
And without it, there's just no way you you have access to any of those things.
So yeah, that's that's a beautiful aspect of the of learning another language.
Number four, we touched on already, but the cognitive benefits.
In adults, there's reducing the risk of developing dementia or delaying the onset of dementia.
Is is a benefit of learning a second language.
So yeah, so I mean, even if you're just looking, it's it's almost like to me like a.
You know, if you're like, I got to hit the gym.
I better do like P 90 X or something like that.
It's like, well, I got to hit the mental gym.
I'm going to learn Spanish.
I'm going to do some verb.
Cognition, yeah, exactly.
Those are your pushups, you know, for a bunch.
Yeah, yeah, your pullups are your, you know, grammar, your verb tenses or whatever, you know.
But yeah, so I think for a cognitive benefits, definitely it's worth it.
And the last one is cultural enrichment.
Learning a new language opens the door to experience in experiencing and understanding different cultures.
And so I think that's what I think is more deeply.
And so would you agree with that?
I think you've already touched on that before we have touched on that.
And I would agree.
And as you said about like, for example, the whole herbal medicinal part, if I didn't speak any Spanish, I would be completely locked out of that.
Or for example, my boyfriend speaks opa tech.
He would like, I wouldn't have been able to talk with my grandparents and learn all their wisdom.
If I didn't speak Spanish, he wouldn't have been able to talk with his grandparents if he didn't speak opa tech.
It's like a whole other world that you would have been completely excluded from in a way.
And I do see the effect of like Latinos that grew up in the US that don't speak Spanish or don't speak some kind of language that connects them to the culture because really were an indigenous culture as well.
They have, it's just there's like a wall there.
So that's why I think, yeah, I agree.
There's a lot of culture locked into language.
Absolutely, absolutely. It's where the wisdom is locked in the language, I think.
You could try to explain some of these things in English, but you're going to lose a lot in the translation.
And so getting it in from the original source is really important.
All right, those are our five.
Yeah. All right, listeners, well, if you enjoyed that, make sure to leave a comment down below at a disease podcast.com.
Shoot us an email at a disease English podcast at gmail.com and join our we chat and what's up groups in order to join the conversation.
And we'll see you guys next time. Bye bye.
Bye.
