Topic Talk | Five reasons why you're never too old to learn a new language

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In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about why it's still important for adults to learn a new language.

Transcript:

00:00:00

Jack

Hey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.

00:00:03

Jack

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00:00:23

Jack

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00:00:42

Jack

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00:00:44

Jack

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00:00:52

Jack

Now let's get on with the show.

00:00:56

Jack

Welcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I'm here with my co-host social. And today we are doing a topic talk and the topic of today's conversation is why you are never too old to learn a language and such a I just went online and did a little bit of research.

00:01:18

Jack

And I found five pretty interesting reasons why you're never too old to learn a language, and the first one is about near neuroplasticity.

00:01:29

Xochitl

Oh, interesting.

00:01:30

Jack

And so yeah, and it's it's it says here while it's true that children often have an easier time picking up languages due to their brains, high level of neuroplasticity, which means ability to adapt and change, adults can still learn new languages.

00:01:50

Jack

Effectively, research has shown that the adult brain remains capable of forming new neural connections.

00:01:58

Jack

Actions and adapting to new linguistic challenges, albeit at a different pace than children, so it's not like we have zero ability to learn a language and and build new neural pathways, but it's not the same as when we're like in the the critical age when you know.

00:02:18

Jack

Whatever that might be, five to three years old.

00:02:21

Jack

You know, I don't know. Thirteen years old or whatever, so yeah.

00:02:25

발표자

Right, right.

00:02:26

Xochitl

Yeah. OK. I think that's very interesting. I've heard before on theories that if you learn two or more languages as a balanced bilingual from childhood that you're also more able to pick up new languages. But even if you hadn't, even if you are monolingual.

00:02:44

Xochitl

And you never learned more than one language growing up. I think research shows that adults, it's it's beginning to show at an increasing weight that adults still retain quite a bit of neuroplasticity. Right, so I think.

00:03:02

Xochitl

Yeah, that just gives you every more reason to have faith that you can learn another language and a lot of the world has light up on us because they have learned two or more languages.

00:03:15

Xochitl

From a young age so.

00:03:17

Jack

Yeah. And this one kind of dovetails nicely. It connects with the one later, which is cognitive benefits. You know, like the like, holding off dementia and stuff like that is creating new neural pathways in your brain, you know, so neurons are making new connections.

00:03:28

발표자

Yep.

00:03:36

Jack

This is a good thing, like it's a it's a good practice. It's like exercise for your brain, you know, it's like working out your brain. So yeah, definitely a good thing. And I also I wanted to say one more thing about what you said about bilingual children.

00:03:44

Xochitl

Right.

00:03:56

Jack

Cause my daughter is a a balanced bilingual just like you.

00:04:00

Jack

Bar and I think there's something that children learn early that that we don't, that I didn't learn till I was older and that is that language is arbitrary and what arbitrary means is there's no reason for anything to be called anything like trees.

00:04:20

Jack

Just the sound that we decided as English speakers to mean tree.

00:04:23

발표자

This can happen.

00:04:27

Jack

But it means nothing to Spanish speaker, you know.

00:04:27

Xochitl

Right.

00:04:31

Xochitl

It might even mean something else, like if a one word might mean something completely different in another language.

00:04:37

Jack

Exactly, exactly. Those are called false cognates. I believe you know when they they don't line, they sound the same, but they're totally unrelated.

00:04:47

Jack

UM, and I think that, uh, you learned, you know, when you were young, you're like ohh table is table and table is also the Spanish word for table is Mesa.

00:04:58

Jack

If I'm not mistaken.

00:04:59

Jack

Yeah. So you've got you've got 2 words and you're like, oh, OK, so things can have multiple names depending on their.

00:05:06

Xochitl

Right.

00:05:07

Jack

Cultural significance.

00:05:09

Jack

And you learned that just probably before you even knew you learned it. You you knew that. And my daughter.

00:05:14

Xochitl

Right. That was a fact of life, basically. Like, you don't really think that too much.

00:05:17

Jack

Yeah.

00:05:19

Jack

Yeah. And in my little tiny English speaking world, where I'm a monolingual person, I probably was like, you know, a teenager when I had that epiphany. And I'm like, ohh you, the world is not all table is not just the universal term for, you know table it was it was always it's always been a table since the beginning of time.

00:05:35

Xochitl

Right.

00:05:39

Jack

You know, so you you just don't. You don't get that epiphany that that realization until until.

00:05:40

Xochitl

Right.

00:05:48

Jack

Number two, life experience, this one. I'll just read the first sentence. Adults bring a wealth of life experience to the language learning process. So how? What do you think about that? Like, just like life experience.

00:06:03

Xochitl

I think life experience can help you in any way, because if you already have practice studying other things like in university or high school, then you probably already know how to study.

00:06:16

Xochitl

Me and that helps a lot. Like you gave a tip in an earlier episode about writing things down and how that helps retain information and for example, things like flash cards. You'll have all those tools at your disposal and you'll be way more organized. So I think that will definitely help. And it's also something to look forward to in the sense that it'll open your life experiences.

00:06:37

Xochitl

Too.

00:06:38

Xochitl

Like you'll have way more experiences and be able to appreciate cultures at a different level. If you speak another language fluently.

00:06:47

Jack

I I see it as like this, like beautiful secret skeleton key to an entire entirely new world. Like you. You put it in. You open that door and it's like the Wizard of Oz. Like you walking into another world that you can understand.

00:06:57

Xochitl

Yeah.

00:07:07

Jack

You know, without that, without the language, you're missing just so much. It's so it's so it's so dull and and dreary and and you you can't really appreciate.

00:07:19

Jack

I'm speaking no, you go ahead. You go ahead.

00:07:20

Xochitl

It's like an.

00:07:20

Xochitl

Apple, sorry, good.

00:07:23

Xochitl

I'm just gonna say it's like when you go to the grocery store in the US, there's like a wax cap on the apples. Like there's a thin wax on it, and then you can wash it in hot water and melt it away. And the apple tastes way better. That's like the language. Like, you can see the culture and appreciate it to some extent. But that whole flavorful life of a culture that you can appreciate with language is locked away.

00:07:45

Xochitl

Underneath that wax.

00:07:46

발표자

Yeah.

00:07:47

Jack

That's that's exactly right. There you go. Perfect metaphor. So yeah, life experience, learning a language #3 diverse learning resources. So access to information and knowledge that you might not have had available to you in.

00:08:07

Jack

Without being able to speak that second language, that new language.

00:08:11

Xochitl

Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree. That's another thing I see a lot with, like migrants or actually I see it a lot with my family.

00:08:20

Xochitl

They my mom speaks good English. My aunts, English is is kind of mediocre and she struggles with. It's like a whole world in the US that's locked away from her as far as the resources and being able to navigate certain things on her own because her English lacks.

00:08:39

Xochitl

And so.

00:08:41

Xochitl

That's not really her fault. It's very hard to work a full time job and learn a new language when you move to a new country at the same time, I really struggle with that.

00:08:48

Jack

Sure.

00:08:49

Xochitl

In Korea, you.

00:08:50

Xochitl

Know, but again, it does really hinder you from being able to navigate things independently. The way that you would in your home country.

00:09:00

Jack

Now you gave us some really good examples a while back in in older in older episodes about like remedies.

00:09:09

발표자

This.

00:09:10

Jack

Your mom has these, like, certain remedies from her region of Mexico where she grew up and like, there would be no without without your momma's. You know, as a, as a gateway to that information and your mom and your and your grandparents.

00:09:30

Jack

That information, that knowledge.

00:09:31

Jack

Would be totally locked away from.

00:09:33

Jack

You, you know, and you said like ohh, when you have a stomach ache, your mom would make a certain herbal potion, you know, kind of.

00:09:34

발표자

Right.

00:09:43

Jack

Thing or whatever.

00:09:43

Xochitl

Yeah, yeah.

00:09:44

Jack

Sorry, potion sounds more magical, but it's not feature. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, and I think that that wisdom, there's, like a lot of wisdom that is locked into language.

00:09:46

Xochitl

No, you're fine with the concoction. Uh. A mixture. Yeah, yeah.

00:09:58

Jack

And and without it you there's just no way you you have access to any of those things so.

00:09:58

발표자

Yeah.

00:10:04

Jack

So yeah, that's that's a beautiful aspect of the of learning another language #4 we touched on already, but the cognitive benefits in adults, there's reducing the risk of developing dementia or delaying the onset of dementia is is is a.

00:10:25

Jack

Is a benefit of learning a second law.

00:10:28

Jack

Which so yeah. So I mean, even if you're just looking, it's it's almost like to me, like, you know, if you're like, oh, I gotta hit the gym, I better. I better do, like P90X or something like that. It's like, well, I gotta hit the mental gym. I'm going to learn Spanish. I'm going to learn French.

00:10:29

Xochitl

Right.

00:10:29

Xochitl

You work.

00:10:46

Xochitl

Right can do some verb conjugation, yeah.

00:10:50

Jack

Yeah, exactly.

00:10:52

Jack

Those are your push-ups, you know, for everything. Yeah. Yeah. Your pull-ups are your, you know, the grammar, your verb tenses or whatever, you know. But yeah, I. So I think for cognitive benefits, definitely it's worth it. And the last one is cultural enrichment. Learning a new language opens the door.

00:11:12

Jack

To experience an.

00:11:14

Jack

Experiencing and understanding different cultures more deeply and so.

00:11:19

Jack

Would you agree with?

00:11:20

Jack

That I think you've already touched on that before.

00:11:21

Xochitl

Yeah, we have touched on that and I would agree. And as you said about like for example, the whole herbal medicinal part, if I didn't speak any Spanish, I would be completely locked out of that or, for example, my boyfriend speaks Zapotec, he would like, I wouldn't have been able to talk with my grandparents and learn all their wisdom if I didn't speak Spanish, he wouldn't have been able to talk with his grandparents if he didn't speak Salpa tech.

00:11:44

Xochitl

And so it's like a whole other world that you would have been completely excluded from in a way. And I do see the effect.

00:11:53

Xochitl

Of like Latinos that grew up in the US that don't speak Spanish or don't speak some kind of language that connects them to the culture because really we're we're an indigenous culture as well they have.

00:12:06

Xochitl

It's just there's like a wall there. So that's why I think, yeah, I agree, there's a lot of culture locked into language.

00:12:13

Jack

Absolutely, absolutely. It's where the wisdom is locked in the language. I I think you can try to explain to the, you know, you could try to explain some of these things in English, but they're going to lose. You're going to lose a lot in the translation.

00:12:30

Jack

And so you know, getting it in from the original source is really important. All right, that's our. Those are our five, yeah.

00:12:40

Xochitl

All right, listener as well. If you enjoyed that, make sure we do comment down below at A-Z newspodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at at ozenglishpodcast@gmail.com and join our WeChat and WhatsApp groups in order to join the conversation and we'll see you next time. Bye bye.

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