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cover of episode English Listening - The Benefits of Learning a Language

English Listening - The Benefits of Learning a Language

2024/12/2
logo of podcast Listening Time: English Practice

Listening Time: English Practice

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@Connor : 学习语言对大脑有诸多益处,例如提高创造力、增强解决问题的能力、提升注意力和多任务处理能力,甚至可能延缓认知衰退。研究表明,学习语言需要大脑以不同方式运作,这有助于提高创造力和解决问题的能力。此外,学习语言需要高度集中注意力,这可以提高专注力。而频繁切换不同语言则可能提升多任务处理能力。总的来说,学习语言有助于保持大脑健康,延缓衰老。 Connor: 学习语言对职业发展大有裨益。掌握外语可以帮助你获得在外国公司工作的机会,让你有机会以美元或欧元获得薪水,改善生活水平。此外,学习语言还能让你与外国客户合作,拓展业务,并与来自不同国家的国际同事进行有效沟通。 Connor: 学习外语可以提高你对母语的理解。学习外语的过程中,你会更深入地分析母语的语法结构,从而更好地理解母语的规则和特点。同时,学习外语还能丰富你的母语词汇量,因为你可能会在学习外语的过程中接触到一些你之前不熟悉的母语词汇。 Connor: 学习外语可以提升你的整体沟通能力,让你更关注语言本身。学习外语后,你会更注意自己使用的语言,更有效地与母语非母语人士沟通,并能根据对方的语言水平调整自己的表达方式。 Connor: 学习外语可以提升自尊心和自信心。当你掌握一门外语并达到一定的水平时,你会感到很有成就感,增强自信心。这不仅体现在工作和学习中,也体现在旅行和与人交流的过程中。能够流利地使用外语,会让你在旅行中更加轻松自如,并赢得他人的赞赏。

Deep Dive

Key Insights

What are some brain benefits of learning a language?

Learning a language can increase creativity, strengthen problem-solving skills, improve concentration, enhance multitasking abilities, and potentially slow down cognitive decline. It may also improve episodic memory, which is the memory of specific events in the past.

How does learning a language help with problem-solving skills?

When you learn a language, you often have to solve the problem of understanding unfamiliar sentences. This process of analyzing and making sense of new language structures exercises the problem-solving part of your brain.

Why might learning a language improve your ability to concentrate?

Learning a language requires a lot of focus. When you read or listen to something in a foreign language, you need to be more focused than you would in your native language to understand it. This constant need for focus can improve your overall concentration abilities.

How can learning a language benefit your career?

Learning a language can help you work for foreign companies, earn higher salaries, get opportunities to work abroad, and communicate with international clients and co-workers. It can also open up job opportunities in global businesses.

How does learning a foreign language improve your knowledge of your own language?

Learning a foreign language helps you analyze the grammar of your native language more deeply. You can better understand the differences and similarities between the two languages, which can improve your vocabulary and overall language skills in your native language.

How can learning a language boost your self-esteem?

Achieving a good level in a foreign language can make you feel competent and accomplished. This new skill can boost your self-confidence, especially when you can travel to foreign countries and communicate effectively. It can also impress others, which can further enhance your self-esteem.

Chapters
This chapter explores the cognitive advantages of language learning, citing studies suggesting improvements in creativity, problem-solving, concentration, multitasking, and even slowing cognitive decline and enhancing memory. The speaker emphasizes that while not all claims are 100% certain, the evidence points towards significant brain benefits.
  • Increased creativity
  • Strengthened problem-solving skills
  • Improved concentration
  • Increased ability to multitask
  • Possible slowing of cognitive decline
  • Improved episodic memory

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

La luz iluminando, la nieve ya llegó, el año está acabando, casi terminó. Solo puede ser que... La gente está de fiesta, ugly sweaters por ahí, las botas colgadas en la chimney. Solo puede ser que... Llegó la temporada del McQueen. Solo me dan los participantes por tiempo limitado.

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. There's nothing sweeter than bacon cookies during the holidays. With Prime, I get all my ingredients delivered right to my door, fast and free. No last minute store trips needed. And of course, I blast my favorite holiday playlist on Amazon Music. It's the ultimate soundtrack for creating unforgettable memories. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to get more out of whatever you're into.

Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast. Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 183 of the Listening Time Podcast. I hope you're doing great. I hope that your English learning is going really well and I hope that this episode will give you some encouragement to continue strong with your English and

because we're going to talk today about the benefits of learning a language. So I wrote down some different benefits that I was able to find online and just some benefits that I have been able to see in my own life.

from being a language learner. So I hope that this episode will give you some extra motivation to continue on with your English learning or continue learning any other language that you're

currently studying right now. So I'm sure that this episode will be relevant and interesting to all of you. And as always, I want to encourage you to start using my advanced episodes. You'll need to eventually use native level content if you want to be able to understand native speakers when they speak fast.

So that's what my advanced episodes are for. They help get your ears accustomed to real English spoken fast. And of course, you have the transcript for all of those episodes. So the link to sign up is down below. And you can also sign up for my U.S. Conversations podcast so you can practice listening to two people having a conversation in English at

at normal speed. Eventually, you'll need to be able to do that if you want to reach a high level in English, of course. So that's why I created that podcast to help you practice with that. The link to sign up to that is also down below. And remember to give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review if you can. All right, let's get started.

Okay, let's talk about some different benefits of learning a language. You're learning English right now and maybe another language. So what added benefits might you get from learning a language?

Besides just learning the language, what other benefits might you see? Well, let's start with the brain benefits. So this is something that a lot of people are very interested in.

They want to know if learning a language helps their brain or not. And I think it does. There have been different studies that have looked at different benefits that language learning has on the brain. And I'm not an expert on this, and I can't tell you 100% that language learning will help

help your brain in these different ways. But I think that studies have shown that it's possible, that it's likely that learning a language can have some different benefits for your brain. So one benefit is increased creativity. So this is pretty interesting. It

It's probably not something that people would think of. But I think that studies have suggested that learning a foreign language helps your brain be more creative.

By the way, when we say that studies suggest something, we're saying that these studies point to this conclusion, but maybe not with 100% certainty. Okay, it looks like this is the conclusion.

So studies suggest that you become more creative or you can possibly become more creative by learning a language. And I guess this makes sense because when you learn a language, you kind of have to

Exercise your brain in a different way. There's really nothing else like learning a language. There's nothing that's exactly the same or even comparable, in my opinion. I think it's a unique experience.

thing to learn. It's not like learning music or learning some type of hobby or skill. I think learning a language is a very unique exercise and I think I can see why it might make you more creative just because

You kind of have to use your brain in a different way when you're learning a language. And I'm sure when you use your brain in different ways, this can have a positive effect on creativity. So I don't know exactly how that works. I'm not an expert on any of this, but I think it kind of makes sense, right?

And another benefit that learning a language might have on your brain is that it can possibly strengthen your problem-solving skills. I think this one is a little more apparent or obvious because when you learn a language, you really exercise...

the problem solving part of your brain, I think, when you're trying to understand a sentence that is unfamiliar to you. You kind of have to solve this problem, right? You have to solve the problem of this unknown sentence and you have to try to make sense of this sentence. I think

This happens a lot in language learning where you hear a sentence that you don't immediately understand, but then you think about it and analyze it, and then after a few seconds, you get it. And you say, oh, now I understand what that meant.

And I think that that's problem solving, right? Your brain is trying to solve that mystery. So I can definitely see how learning a language can strengthen your problem solving skills. I think that that one is a little more obvious to me.

And another benefit that you might get from learning a language is that it might increase your ability to concentrate. This is an interesting one. So I guess...

Learning a language requires a lot of focus, right? It really engages your concentration because when you're reading something or when you're listening to something in a foreign language,

you have to be more focused than if you listen to something or read something in your native language, right? If you're interacting in a foreign language and someone says something to you in a foreign language, if you're not paying full attention...

You might not understand them. You might miss a few words or something like that. So you really have to be focused. I'm sure that you know this. I'm sure that when you try to listen to native English speakers speak fast or when you use my advanced episodes or my US Conversations podcast, I'm sure you have to pay attention. Right?

You have to be focused. And so this makes sense that a benefit of learning a language can be that your brain is able to concentrate better, to focus better. So that's pretty cool. And another benefit might be that learning a language increases your ability to multitask.

This is one that I had never thought of before. I guess this might have something to do with the fact that when you speak multiple languages, you often switch between the two languages, right? You go back and forth between Spanish and English or Portuguese and Spanish or whatever.

And that switching between languages might help you become a better multitasker in other areas of your life. Maybe you can go back and forth between two different activities more easily. I don't know about this one, but I read this article.

I think on a couple different websites. So I wanted to include this one. I thought that this was also pretty cool. Bienvenido a McDonald's. ¿Puedo tomar su orden? Yo quiero un arequipe frappé. Para mí, un cajeta frappé. Un manjar blanco frappé para mí, porfa. Entonces, ¿qué van a pedir? Nos da cuatro dulces de leche frappé, por favor. Como sea que le digas. Es un dulce de leche frappé y está en McDonald's por tiempo limitado.

And then, in general, talking about brain health and the way that your brain ages, I think that many people would agree that learning a language can possibly help your brain age better.

When I say age better, I'm saying as it gets older, it doesn't decline as much. If you say that someone has aged very well, that means that they look good even though they've gotten older. So this is probably the most interesting example

brain benefit for me. I think that it would be really cool if the language learning that I've done could help me, help my brain actually be healthier

in my old age, right? So there is some evidence that learning a language can possibly slow down cognitive decline. That's really cool. So it might slow down the processes that lead to different dementias and other brain-related issues. That sounds like a great benefit, right?

I don't know all the details of that. I haven't read the studies, but I know that there is some evidence that suggests that. So that's great. And another thing that might happen is that

Learning a language might improve your episodic memory. So your memory of specific events in the past. And I think that I saw a study about this with older adults. Language learning helped increase this specific type of memory. It helped improve it. So that's also really cool.

So, as you can see, there are a lot of different possible benefits related to your brain in terms of learning a language. But there are other benefits besides just the brain benefits. I think one of the most obvious ones is that learning a language can help your career.

And I'm sure many of you are listening to this podcast episode right now because you want to learn English for your career, for your work, for some opportunity. I'm sure many of you are doing that. And so if you speak a foreign language...

This can help you work for foreign companies, of course. And I've had many students in the past that have learned English and it has allowed them to get a job with a company from the US or from Europe and they were able to earn their salary in dollars or in euros

and then spend in their local currency. So this made them rich almost in their countries. So I've talked to many people who have a really great quality of life in their country because they were able to get a job there

with a foreign company and that's because they learned English. So of course that's a big benefit. Learning a language can give you opportunities abroad. Maybe your company can send you to another country to work. That could be really cool.

Learning a language can also help you work with foreign clients. And maybe you own your own business and speaking English or another foreign language can

might give you the opportunity to work with clients that don't speak your language. So you can expand your business like that. And then also, if you speak English in particular, if you learn this language, this can help you communicate with

international co-workers. You can talk to other people in your company that are based in different countries because a lot of them probably speak English as well. So there are plenty of benefits for your career. And then I thought of some other benefits. These ones are not career related or

brain-related exactly, but I think that they're still very important. I think that learning a foreign language improves your knowledge of your own language. This has definitely happened to me. So when you learn a foreign language, specifically as an adult, it really helps you analyze the

your native language, you can better understand the grammar of your own language when you learn the grammar of another language. You can see the differences, you can compare the two and contrast them. When you contrast two things, it means that you compare them to show their differences. Okay? So you can contrast

the grammar in your language and the grammar in the language that you're learning. And it might also help improve your vocabulary in your native language. This has happened to me. There are words in English that I didn't really know the meaning of before, but in Spanish or in French, for example, there is that same word

Maybe it looks a little different, but it's a word that is much more commonly used in Spanish or French. And then because I had to learn it in Spanish or in French, it also taught me the definition of that word in English. So your vocabulary in your native language can also improve by learning a foreign language. So

Overall, if you learn a language, I think that your knowledge of your native language is going to improve. You're going to have a better understanding of your own language. So I like that benefit. And learning a foreign language helps you communicate better overall. It makes you more conscious of language in general.

People that haven't learned a foreign language, they might not think so much about the language that they're using. They might not be as conscious of different linguistic related things. And so I think that this is something that I've seen in my own life.

After becoming a language learner, I'm just more conscious of certain things in the words I'm using, the sentences I'm saying. And I think more specifically, it's really helped me talk more effectively to non-native speakers of my own language. So it's helped me talk more effectively to non-native

people who are learning English or people who speak English but aren't native speakers. So I know what types of words and phrases and expressions might be harder for them to understand. So I don't use all of those hard words.

words and phrases and expressions when I'm talking to them. I try to find simpler ways to say the same thing.

I'm going to do a whole advanced episode on this. I think, I don't remember when it's going to be released, but I'm going to talk about this because this is something that I find very important. I think that it's important to try to help non-native speakers of your language understand you. It's good to

adjust your speech to help them out if you can. So I'll talk about that in that advanced episode. And one other benefit that I wanted to mention of learning a foreign language is that it can boost your self-esteem. When you learn a language and you feel like you've reached a pretty good level in that language, you

You feel competent, right? You feel like you've accomplished something. You have this new skill. You can imagine that the more skills that you have, the...

more self-confidence you probably have, right? So if you don't have any skills, you probably lack some confidence because you don't feel like you can do that much. But when you have these different skills, you feel confident.

more capable of doing different things, right? So this can really boost your self-esteem. And this is also related to travel, for example, like you can travel to a foreign country and speak English there and be understood and understand the other people.

That can feel really good and boost your confidence when you can travel with ease.

When you do something with ease, this means that you do it in an easy way, in a comfortable way. So that can definitely boost your self-esteem. When you feel competent to travel and speak a foreign language and understand it, that can definitely make you feel pretty good. And I also think that learning a foreign language and being able to speak it

is kind of like learning to play an instrument in the sense that when you have this skill, people are impressed. For example, if people hear you play the piano well, they probably instantly a better image of you. They think of you even more positively than they did before because they

they see that you have this talent or this skill and they admire that right the same goes for speaking foreign languages when people hear you speak a foreign language they're often very impressed and

They congratulate you on being able to do that. I don't think that this is the best reason to learn a foreign language. I think you should do it for your own benefit and not to impress others. But, of course, many people...

would see this as a benefit, being able to impress others with their foreign language skills. Again, not the most important one, but I wanted to include it as well. All right, so I'll stop there, but I'm sure there are tons of other benefits that you might be able to think of.

But really, I hope that this gives you more motivation to continue on with your English learning. And I hope it motivates you to also use my advanced podcast episodes.

and my US Conversations podcast to take your English to the next level to start to understand native English spoken fast. This is something that you'll need to be able to do eventually and you can use these resources effectively

to make this a little more accessible to you because I provide the transcript for you. So this is something that can really help you out. So if you want to check those out, the links to sign up are down below. And please give this podcast a five-star rating if you haven't done so yet and write a review if you can.

All right. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.

En McDonald's Participantes.

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