Language is a tool to communicate or transfer the image we have in mind to the listener’s mind. It was discovered to make our lives easy by reducing the signs to make things clearer and more vivid.
Whether you are learning a new language because you are moving to a new country or trying to train your tongue with a new language, it is always beneficial. It can help massively improve your knowledge about a particular region.
But there are also some fears that stop us from learning a new language. We are going to discuss both the benefits and barriers to learning a new language.
First, let us discuss the barrier and break every one of them. So to break every one of these barriers, prepare your mind and become a baby learning and hearing a language for the first time. This can help you greatly in learning a new language(Take this seriously! It can work for learning anything though).
Barrier #1: What if I mispronounce a word?
You are learning something out of your usual. There are a lot of ways this cannot happen the first time you are trying. But you can always learn it with “practice”. Every language spoken uses different sounds that are created in our nose, our throat, mouth, tongue and chest.
Every language has a unique way of engaging your breath, nose, throat, mouth and tongue. Eg. If you’ve been speaking in Tamil, there is no perfect match the world “all” or “fan”. There is a unique sound in the language. We naturally tend to map the new with what we already know. Try listening to the language that you want to learn more. Try and reproduce the unique sounds of the letters and words. You’ll master with practice.
Barrier #2: What if I forget my first language?
But know well that the reverse is going to happen. When we learn a language we always use our first language as an anchor. We see how our language matches and mismatches with the new language in sounds and patterns. You are going to make your first language stronger and embed more knowledge over it.
Barrier #3: What if I fail terribly at the grammar?
This is the most usual barrier for a person to learn a new language. Imagine you are a baby. Did someone teach you what is a subject, verbs, prepositions? No! You know how you learnt your language. Through Patterns! Humans are good at understanding patterns. You might have failed terribly in your own language, but you learnt the patterns which made learning more words easier. Listening to the language is the best way to learn.
Now that we’ve discussed the barriers, let’s also discuss the benefits of learning a new language.
Recognize patterns more vividly
A new language comes with a whole new world of sounds, patterns and meanings. Your brain has to deal with the complexity of ingesting the language, reproduce the sounds, finding the patterns and reproducing all of these. This is awesome practise for your brain. You will start to recognize patterns in other languages. This is going to help you learn more than just one language.
Improves Memory
You will be learning new vocabulary. You will be having a library of new words. This trains your brain to store more information. You have to recall patterns, words and sounds which makes learning a new language a great brain trainer.
Fights dementia
Learning a language keeps your brain healthy for longer. Studies show that adults who speak two or more languages had better brain health. They remained out of many diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer’s etc.,
Improves performance in other areas
Language learning boost the ability to improve vastly in problem-solving. It always results in higher cognitive skills. The reading comprehension and interpretation are high in a multilingual student compared to a monolingual student.
Learn More
Learning a new language also comes with learning the culture, etiquette and nuances in a certain place. The first thing that we learn in any language is to greet. We learn about the seasons, days, months, festivals and basic fabrication of the society where the language is broadly spoken. Language is so closely related to the life of people. We will be able to learn about people and appreciate the world.
Languages are a great way to savour life. It is a window to explore the world and the people. It is a fascinating and wonderful experience to learn a new language. If you are having a fear. We wish you break it and start your journey into a new land of words, sounds and experiences!
