Age changes the way languages are learned, but adults remain capable of learning new languages throughout life. Adults and kids bring different strengths to the task. Children tend to have advantages with pronunciation and some aspects of grammar, while adults bring larger vocabularies and better-developed strategies for learning.
Research involving older adults suggests that learning a language can produce cognitive benefits, although the findings are mixed. The potential benefit may come less from achieving fluency than from the process of learning itself. Language learning is a sustained challenge that keeps people learning, practicing, and adapting.
There are social benefits, too. Learning another language can deepen cultural understanding, improve interpersonal communication and encourage people to empathize with other people’s perspectives and experiences. It can also connect people with others from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, creating opportunities for conversation and friendship.
There is no established formula for how much language learning is needed to provide these benefits. Studies have used everything from intensive classroom instruction to short daily sessions with language-learning apps, over periods ranging from weeks to months, to see whether language learning can improve cognitive function. Rather than a magic number of hours, what matters may be sustained engagement in a challenging activity like learning a new language.
Building cognitive resilience
Learning another language is not a miracle cure for aging, and it cannot guarantee protection against Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia.
But it is an unusually rich form of mental activity.
Perhaps the most useful way to think about language learning is not as a way to keep the brain young, but as a way to support cognitive resilience—the ability to keep learning, adapting and functioning despite the changes that come with age.
Aging inevitably changes the brain, but people retain the capacity to learn throughout life. Keeping our brains engaged in demanding new activities may contribute to that resilience.
Karen Stollznow, Senior Research Fellow of Linguistics, University of Colorado Boulder; Griffith University; University of New England. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.