{"id":3373,"date":"2015-05-27T09:20:39","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T13:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/?p=3373"},"modified":"2020-10-01T14:52:45","modified_gmt":"2020-10-01T18:52:45","slug":"language-learning-and-the-human-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/2015\/05\/27\/language-learning-and-the-human-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Language Learning and the Human Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Itchy<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of the reason I love learning languages is that it teaches me so much about the human brain and human interaction.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never studied much neurology or sociology or epistemology or anthropology\u2014I was more of a travelology and daydreamology type of student, myself. But with languages, that social glue unique to humans (at least until someone translates dolphinese), I feel I\u2019m getting a constant informal education on the way the brain absorbs information, restructures it, efficiently uses just what it needs and puts aside that which it doesn\u2019t. I have front-row seats to these insights because language-learning happens purely<\/em> in the brain. Learning other skills, like pole-vaulting or the ukulele, can teach me a lot about my body, but wrestling with adjective endings, figures of speech and unique grammar rules teaches me about my mind.<\/p>\n

For example, in taking on two different languages, Italian and German, in two different contexts, I\u2019ve observed my own brain choosing what\u2019s important and what isn\u2019t, and sticking to it. This is much harder to notice from within one\u2019s native language, but with two foreign languages at roughly the same level yet used for different purposes, I can compare and contrast.<\/p>\n

I learned Italian without studying it at all, believe it or not\u2014it was absorbed during the years spent living abroad and traveling with my then-girlfriend-now-wife. At the time, she didn\u2019t speak much English, and her family and friends spoke absolutely none. I had no choice but to pick up the language, or else be damned to rely forever on a third party to translate. Because my only inputs were from social occasions\u2014dinners, outings with friends, etc\u2014my Italian, even today, is extremely informal. Imagine having learned your language just from parties and mealtime conversations and you\u2019ll have an idea of my abilities. Like the comic above, my internal dictionary is quite capable at expressing my feelings about that slice of prosciutto or what kind of risotto would be good for tomorrow\u2019s lunch\u2014but sit me down at a business conference or government office, and I\u2019m as helpless as a beached whale.<\/p>\n

With German, the opposite is the case. Despite living here in Germany\u2019s capital, I\u2019ve learned the language almost exclusively in classrooms, and my most common real-world application for the language has been a thrilling variety of bureaucratic offices\u2014town halls, local councils, tax offices, housing agencies, phone companies, law firms\u2014as well as reading and responding to letters, warnings, and notices from the aforementioned administrative organizations. I know my way around Bescheinigung<\/em>s, Best\u00e4tigung<\/em>s and all manner of Schreibarbeit<\/em>, but toss me into a pub and watch the wallflower bloom. I simply don\u2019t know how normal people talk in everyday situations, because until fairly recently I haven\u2019t met many Germans patient enough to ignore their perfectly fluent English and practice Deutsch<\/em> with me.<\/p>\n

Observing this difference in the development of the two languages has been fascinating. It\u2019s as though the brain considers any \u201cnew\u201d knowledge or skills to be a vast, tangled thicket, and it can only hack through if it knows its destination (i.e., \u201ccommunicate with human beings\u201d). Then, it searches for the easiest way from A to B. Once there, the brain treads the familiar path it\u2019s already cut, because why would continue to hack at the thicket if you\u2019ve already made the way? Why would you keep anything that didn\u2019t serve the immediate goal at hand?<\/p>\n

This brings me to my favorite discovery, and the most interesting thing I\u2019ve observed from my attempts to pick up foreign languages: we humans can<\/em> choose the road less traveled. All other organisms on this planet, from dogs to trees to microscopic fungi, choose the easiest route to accomplish their goals, and then never stray from that path unless forced to. That\u2019s how evolution works. When\u2019s the last time your cat challenged herself to try something new, just for the heck of it? When\u2019s the last time you saw a centipede try to better itself, or a bacteria weigh the pros and cons of a new approach?<\/p>\n

Never, because they can only learn by accident, where we are free to march into the thickets of the unknown and force ourselves to become learners again. We don\u2019t have to be imprisoned by the comfortable if we don\u2019t want to. I will throw myself into German festivals and picnics and dance parties for the sake of science and self-betterment, I tell you, for the sake of all that\u2019s unique and beautiful about the human condition! And that\u2019s just what I intend to do!<\/p>\n

*Storms the Biergarten<\/em> in a blaze of glory*<\/p>\n

What about you? What has learning languages taught you, if anything, about the human mind?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Part of the reason I love learning languages is that it teaches me so much about the human brain and human interaction. I\u2019ve never studied much neurology or sociology or epistemology or anthropology\u2014I was more of a travelology and daydreamology type of student, myself. But with languages, that social glue unique to humans (at least…<\/p>\n

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