The benefits of a bilingual brain

I have found an interesting video which talks about bilingualism and its advantages.

Some years ago the investigators thought in their hypothesis that the bilingualism was a problem, but after some researches, nowadays it is consider a benefit to our brain.

The brain is not the same in people who is monolingual than in people who is bilingual. The ones who are bilingual have more or less the same capacity to manage in the both languages they know.

Moreover, it is known that to know a language is necessary to have two active parts which are the speaking and writing and two passive parts the listening and reading. Depending on the situation and how the person acquires the language he or she could be 3 different types of bilingual person.

He or she could have learnt the first and second language at the same time, the first language at home and the second one at school or learning the second one from the first one.

Moreover, because we have our brain splitted in two parts, when we are in our critical period, what it means that we are children, we have more plasticity in the two hemispheres, and for that reason we have more capacity to learn a second language with a proficiency level. On the contrary adults only have more plasticity on the left hemisphere for that reason is more difficult to acquire a proficiency level in a second language, and they also have a more rational approachment in the second language problems.

Finally, something that has attracted my attention has been that according to the video being multilingual can provide us too many advantages as for example, delaying cognitive illnesses such as Alzheimer.  So even when you are an adult you can start learning another language not only to improve your knowledge but also your health.

Noelia Máñez