![]() So how do multilinguals manage to use just one language at a time? Lots and lots of practice! Learning to suppress one language, and all its connections, is a cognitive skill that lifelong bilinguals are experts in. It happens with lifelong bilinguals, too! ![]() Your brain can't help but activate (remember and call to the surface) these related words. Your brain generally learns and stores all the languages you know in the same regions, so there's always going to be overlapping connections between translations (like cat and Spanish gato), words that sound similar (like vase and Spanish vaso 'cup, glass'), and especially words that sound alike and have shared meanings (like flower and Spanish flor 'flower'). As you get more proficient, you'll build stronger connections directly to the new language (bottom image). You need lots of practice and input (language you can learn from) to develop strong connections directly from the idea to the new word.Įarly in the learning process, you're likely to translate through your first language when thinking of words in your new language (top image). So when you learn a new word, in a new language, your brain starts building links from the idea to the new word - but initially the new word is connected to its translation in your own language, instead of to the idea itself. And sometimes parents themselves speak different languages with their kids, so there is no single "community" language! There are even cultures where everyone is expected to marry someone from a different language group, so language learning is an ordinary part of life.įor languages you already know really well, like your first language, you have strong connections between ideas (what you want to say) and the words you use to express them. In some parts of the world, learning multiple languages from birth is the norm, or the language used in schools is different from the language actually used by the community. The human brain is made for learning languages, plural. ![]() In this post, we'll share ideas for studying multiple languages at the same time, and we'll look at some research on language learning! How your brain juggles multiple languages But is it a good idea to study multiple languages at a time, or is it confusing? Does it make it harder to learn them well?Īnswer: Thankfully, your brain can definitely handle learning two (or more!) languages at once! (Two down, 6,998 to go.) But there are also some ways you can make this linguistic task easier on yourself. There are around 7,000 languages in the world, and if you've studied one you might have had the realization that you could study another…and another.make that ALL the languages.
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