Learning a second language slows brain ageing, neuroscience finds

Neuroscientific research shows that speaking more than one language has measurable benefits for the brain and can delay cognitive ageing. A Guardian columnist describes her own experience learning French and notes that fear of looking foolish remains the biggest barrier for English monolinguals. Scientists encourage language learning at any age as a form of brain exercise.

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I love busting out a French subjunctive in pursuit of better restaurant service, so it’s a joy to discover there’s a neuroscientific upside to being multilingual

It’s hard to pick a favourite PG Wodehouse line, but the one I’m perhaps most fond of is this : “Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.”

It’s funny, but it also succinctly captures something that I have long felt about language acquisition, which is that in order to truly embrace learning another tongue, you have to be prepared to look foolish and vulnerable. (Why that can be so difficult for the English – a monoglot minority on a largely bilingual planet – is another article entirely.) More people will perhaps be prepared to endure that humbling process now, as new research has found that learning another language can slow ageing in the brain by up to 13 years . Multilingualism, it is thought, promotes brain connectivity and slows its decline with age.

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