Age changes the way languages are learned, but adults remain capable of learning new languages throughout their lives. Adults and children bring different strengths to this task. Children tend to have advantages in pronunciation and some aspects of grammar, while adults have larger vocabularies and better developed learning strategies.
Research with older adults suggests that learning a language can provide cognitive benefits, although results are mixed. The potential benefit may come less from achieving fluency than from the learning process itself. Learning a language is an ongoing challenge that requires people to learn, practice, and adapt.
There are also social benefits. Learning another language can deepen cultural understanding, improve interpersonal communication, and encourage people to empathize with other people’s perspectives and experiences. It can also connect people with others from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, creating opportunities for conversation and friendship.
There is no established formula for how much language learning is required to achieve these benefits. Studies have used everything from intensive classroom instruction to short daily sessions using language learning apps over periods of weeks to months to find out whether learning languages can improve cognitive function. Rather than a magical number of hours, what may be important is sustained engagement with a challenging activity such as learning a new language.
Building cognitive resilience
Learning another language is not a miracle cure for aging and cannot guarantee protection against Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.
But it is an unusually rich form of mental activity.
Perhaps the most useful way to think about language learning is not as a way to keep the brain young, but as a way to support cognitive resilience—the ability to continue learning, adapting, and functioning despite the changes that come with age.
Age inevitably changes the brain, but the ability to learn remains throughout life. Engaging our brains in challenging new activities can contribute to this resilience.
Karen StollznowSenior Research Fellow in Linguistics, University of Colorado Boulder; Griffith University; University of New England. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
