Benefits of Being a Bilingual or Multilingual

How many language do you speak? Are you a bilingual? Or, a multilingual? Do you know being a bilingual give you some benefits, particularly for your brain? Bilingual is a term to call people who speak two languages, while people who speak more than two are called multilinguals. In this modern era, in which it is easier for people to move themselves across the world, being bilingual or multilingual is pretty common.

However, being multilingual is not all about being able to speak more than two languages, but also the benefits of that ability. According to some research that has been done by some experts, being multilingual affects the work of the human brain. A multilingual person tends to have good executive functions such as being able to think critically, planning something in such a structured way, and the ability to solve problems. Moreover, being multilingual makes it easier for people to accept knowledge from various sources in many languages they know. It causes them to have the ability to communicate with others easily. The knowledge they got and their good communication skills help them to connect with people all across the world.

Beside of being able to communicate with people around the world, being multilingual helps people sharpen their mind and enhance their memory. In her speech on TED-Ed, Mia Nacamulli proposed that being multilingual could help people decrease the possibility of Alzheimer and Dementia. It’s possible that multilinguals – especially those who are multilingual by learning, not naturally being able to speak the languages by acquiring them – must be able to remember many linguistic aspects of each language they know. Even though at the end they could naturally speak the language without even thinking about the linguistic aspect anymore, the process of learning the language helped them sharpen their memory.

Therefore, being someone who can speak more than one language not only give you convenience in communication, especially with people around the globe, but also give some effects for your brain to be more enhanced.

 

Written by : Ismi Nur Wulandari

 

Sourceses:

https://www.mondly.com/blog/2020/06/09/benefits-multilingualism/

http://kodaheart.com/10-things-21/