What happens to your brain when you learn another language, according to science

In an increasingly interconnected world, speak more than one language It’s almost essential. Both to study and to work and to obtain better resources on the Internet, the ideal is to learn the “universal language”: English.

Although the brain is an organ that changes throughout life, it has been proven that this shows up greater plasticity during childhood.

However, and although it is clear that for some adults it is easier to learn one or more languages ​​other than their mother tongue, learning another language can begin at any stage of life. And it is also useful to maintain the brain in full operation.

For several years, scientists have been studying what happens in this organ of bilingual or multilingual people. And the neural connections that these speakers activate are still being studied.

What happens to your brain when you learn another language?

According to science, when a child learns another language, this knowledge is stored in the same area as the native language: the left hemisphereindicate on the website of Elizabeth I University, from Burgos, Spain. However, during adulthood, they move to other regions of the brain.

In other words, the brain exhibits an extraordinary flexibility known as Neuronal plasticity. When someone immerses themselves in the grammar and vocabulary of a different language, neurons fire to make new connections and strengthen existing ones, as explained on the company’s website. FASS Foundationa Spanish entity focused on the care of the elderly.

He hippocampus, a region of great importance for memory, lights up like a constellation during this mechanism, according to several studies. But brain plasticity is not the only protagonist of this cognitive process.

THE Prefrontal Cortex, Responsible for executive functions, acts as a meticulous director who oversees planning, decision making and sustained attention. When conjugating verbs and building sentences, this region shows great activity. Furthermore, the amygdala, guardian of emotions, also plays a role, since affective experiences linked to language leave profound traces in us. facilitate or complicate the study.

In an article on the website of International University of La Rioja (Spain) some stand out the benefits change that the study of another language produces in the brain.

“Bilingual brains generate more gray matterthe part of the brain that decisively influences information processing and that collaborates with the white matter,” says its author.

And he adds that, when more than one language is spoken, “the white matter is better preserved in old age because action of myelina component that guarantees the transmission of information between neurons which, in the case of these bilingual brainsperforms its function better.”

But that is not all. Again according to the Spanish university, the management of two languages improves cognitive abilities of the students; increases your attention and ability to perform tasks efficiently; delays the onset of dementia; improves memory and makes it easier to perform various tasks simultaneously.

In this sense, learning another language does not only imply a translation of words, but also an immersion in a different cognitive reality. bilingual people Not only do they have access to different words, but to different ways of thinkingwhich broadens your perspective and your capacity for abstraction.

Finally, research suggests so native language It lies in the words we choose, but also, and very much, in the way we perceive the world. To the to learn a new languagewe venture into a dance between familiarity and strangeness, exploring new nuances of our identity.