Hola! Le gusta aprender las idiomas? If you didn’t understand that, or you had to try hard to understand it, chances are you fall in the same category as the 80%-85% of Americans who are not educated properly with foreign languages. Did you know that in other countries, second languages are spoken in everyday life? That means that there are people who switch between two or sometimes three languages multiple times a day. Looking at the statistics, 56% of Europeans speak multiple languages; not one or two, but multiple. This is embarrassing when compared to our 75% of Americans who can’t even hold a simple conversation in a foreign language. Change here is clearly needed. Throughout the United States, people should not grow up believing myths about languages such as the “difficulty” it takes to learn them, the fact that adults can’t learn them, and the belief that learning languages isn’t important.
A very frustrating thing for language lovers is hearing the inaccurate myths that surround them when they encourage others to learn a language. Learning a foreign language is a big task, absolutely, but that does not mean that it is hard to do. Studies actually show that people try too hard to learn a language. They actually make it harder for themselves than it is by trying too hard, then blame it on being hard to learn. It is most likely because of the belief that languages are hard to learn, that people try too hard and fail. The language as an object idea comes into play here too. The fact that teachers teach languages like objects and like other subjects in school is wrong and inaccurate. Katie Nielson says, “In history class, you start chronologically and you use dates in order of how things happened. That’s just not how language-learning works,” she says. “You can’t memorize a bunch of words and rules and expect to speak the language. Then what you have is knowledge of ‘language as object’. You can describe the language, but you can’t use it.” The huge belief of having to know every word of a language to be able to speak it is one of the biggest misconceptions of language learning. It only makes languages so much more difficult than they need to be. Knowing and studying the vocabulary for a hospital surgery visit or the names of shapes will not help you when going on vacation in a foreign country. Neither will hammering every subjunctive or imperfect grammar tense rule when you can’t even hold a decent conversation in the present tense. This is a huge problem with language teaching and learning and is in serious need of reform, because it's making people feel like learning a language is larger than their capabilities, when it is not.
No person on planet Earth is too old to learn a language, I will come right out and say that with certainty. If you have a disability that comes with age that prohibits your learning ability, or you are illiterate, deaf, blind, etcetera, then that is a quite different story. As a child, you use both hemispheres of your brain to learn languages. Your right hemisphere, which is known to be linked to emotional and social interactions, and your left, which is known to be linked to logical and analytical interactions. As an adult, you're more likely to fully use your left brain to learn a language, breaking down grammar and vocabulary to learn it in that way. This is in fact not a bad thing when done the right way, because your logic and knowledge of how you learn best has developed far more than a child’s. You may have heard or said that children can “soak up languages.” This is partially true, but simplified much more than it really is. A child almost has no choice but to babble nonsense to try and communicate with others, and that babble eventually turns into simple sentences when the child corrects his or herself. From this point, the child experiences different things, learning which words to use for these situations. You may think that you do not have this luxury, but you most definitely do, at every age. When an adult starts to learn a language, they are almost afraid to speak it, which kills their speaking ability in the future. Even for visual learners, speaking and babbling just like a child learning a language is by far the best way for one to learn a language and correct his or herself. Think about this for a second. Do children write essays and study to learn languages from textbooks?
It is depressing that most people don’t cringe when someone says “well it’s not important to learn a language.” I certainly do, and I will quickly give them a small lecture on why they are wrong. People are entitled to their opinions, and honestly some people live lives where their native tongue is the only necessary thing they need to go along their daily life. For most people however, speaking more than one language is the puzzle piece they are missing. The benefits for learning a language are endless, and it’s more than a choice to gain those benefits, but the world is in need of people who can communicate across the board. Eating healthy foods, physically exercising, socially interacting and expanding your knowledge really are the most important things you need for life. Learning foreign languages fits into two of those necessary categories.There really is no better way to meet new friends, setback diseases that come with age, have something to do if you're not a busy person, having that thing that you make time for in your schedule for if you are busy, expanding the knowledge that your body needs, finally qualifying fully for that dream job, being able to travel without that language barrier and even having a cool skill to show off than learning a language. These are only a percentage of the important benefits that you earn when you learn a language.
Throughout the United States, people grow up believing false myths about languages such as how “hard” they are to learn, the fact that adults can’t learn them, and the belief that learning languages isn’t important. To finish off, I would like to say that I know it may be hard to change your mind about what you think about learning languages. After all, it is what everyone else thinks. But travel to a foreign country, and see what they say; or talk to some of the most successful people, and ask them their input. I promise you, you will hear otherwise. Most importantly, find what it is you really want in your life, because if learning a language is one of the things you want to do, do it. If learning a language could make your life even better, than I deeply consider that you learn one.
Citations:
Citations:
"Why learning a language is hard & how to make it easier - EF Blog." http://www.ef.com/blog/language/why-learning-a-language-is-hard/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"Does it get harder to learn a language as you get older? - ESL ...." 3 Mar. 2014, https://blog.esl-languages.com/blog/learn-languages/harder-to-learn-language-older-age/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"Am I too old to learn a new language? | Education | The Guardian." 13 Sep. 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/13/am-i-too-old-to-learn-a-language. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"What happens in the brain when you learn a language? | Education ...." 4 Sep. 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/04/what-happens-to-the-brain-language-learning. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"9 Surprising Health Benefits Of Learning A Foreign Language." http://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/9-health-benefits-of-learning-a-foreign-language/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"The benefits of a bilingual brain - Mia Nacamulli | TED-Ed." 2 Jun. 2015, https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-speaking-multiple-languages-benefits-the-brain-mia-nacamulli. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
"Multilingual Europe | Language on the Move." 18 Jul. 2012, http://www.languageonthemove.com/multilingual-europe/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2017.
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