For a Better Brain, Learn Another Language
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I love learning new languages, but I understand that others may not. They shouldn't be restricted to endure learning another language just to achieve the cognitive advantages discussed in this article. There must exist other options that better suit their interests. Even if the newly acquired knowledge/skill must be relative to communication, there are more ways to express one's thoughts than written and verbal language.
It's a little funny that the previous statement sounds so naive and odd when compared with the cognitive equivalent in the article. I take it as evidence that humans are obsessed with physical performance far more than mental, but considering what can be achieved with the body vs the mind, the mismatch in the importance given to the improvement of either is baffling to me.
But the article points out another study where people were able to make more emotionally neutral decisions when operating in their 2nd language (even though the effect disappears in the 1st language for the same individuals). So there is definitely something happening in the brain at a fairly fundamental level beyond "practicing cognition". It certainly gives credence to the theory that language provides a lens through which we view the world.
Probably applicable to spoken languages as well as computer languages. I find that having deep dived into lisp out of interest, my functions in other languages have over time become almost purely functional, with the occasional side effect - I actually cringe a little bit when a function doesn't return anything. The result is that my code has become immediately unit testable. Perhaps the analogy is true?
[1] PDF: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24158/pdf
edit: typos, also I believe https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/sicp/book/node105.ht... is a good example of bridging both worlds. Mapping a scheme to a register machine. Sussman's videos were a real eye opener.
I keep flopping between what second language to choose, Spanish, German or Japanese.
Northern part of China is mainly flat field with little mountain, which makes the dialects similar. Some Northern dialects can even communicate without trouble. On the other hand, the Southern part of China has lots of hills and mountains making people move infrequently (in old days, before cars/trains/etc.) That's why most dialects are from Southern part. Cantonese is one of the typical Southern dialect. However, most Southern dialects cannot communicate with each other even if their speakers were live only miles away.
I would also add two reasons why Chinese is a much better language to learn than Japanese, because I really regret learning them in the wrong order. 1. Japanese makes a lot more sense when you can read Chinese. 2. Chinese is more inventive when it comes to new words, whereas Japanese seems to default to importing the English term. Random example, the @ character is called 小老鼠 (little mouse) in Chinese, but "ato maako" (at mark) in Japanese.
The loan words in Japanese certainly make it much easier to pick up, when you come across them. I can see it being less fun than Chinese in that context given your example.
I have been taking Mandarin lessons (eChineseLearning.com) every day for about three months, and am having the time of my life. I took my fourth business trip to Beijing after only one month of lessons (after self-teaching for about two years), and I was amazed by my ability to interact, and even negotiate prices. It was huge fun.
After only one month, I signed up for their 5-lessons-a-week plan. I get up at 6 a.m. every day to converse with my teacher in China via Skype.
I would definitely suggest one-on-one lessons, as I'm doing it. I get maximum reading and discussion time, and the conversation always starts with a description of what I've done over the last day (or over the weekend). So I'm learning all sorts of words (e.g., "clients") that I wouldn't get from a regular class.
I also know some Spanish and Hebrew. Hebrew is useful for me since I live in Israel, and Spanish is far easier to pronounce. But Chinese has been surprisingly easy overall, has helped me with my travels, and give me a big kick.
I'm not sure I agree that Mandarin/Cantonese are "far more different" from English than Japanese is. They are tonal languages, but AFAIK the grammatical structure of both are more similar to English than Japanese is. Japanese is rather fascinating from a linguistic viewpoint, largely because of the long periods of isolation from other languages.
That said, if one were to learn only one language, with an eye for the future, I think one could make worse choices than Chinese.
P.S. Choose Spanish. Waay easier than German, and of course Japanese is among the hardest languages for native English speakers to acquire.
If on the other hand you want to increase your market value, going the extra mile might pay off since the supply of German and Japanese speakers is probably smaller by an order of magnitude while the GDP (as a proxy for the economic value of the language) is comparable and much denser.
For English speakers German should also be much simpler than Japanese.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/03/language-stu...
Spanish is an unstoppable train like English has been. It's the safe bet on all fronts, and exporting its culture unlike the insular Chinese languages have remained. An American is lucky to have that be a de facto 2nd language to learn. Much of the world is stuck with something far less relevant going forward (other than English). Even French in Canada, hard to choose Spanish over French if Canada.. yet Spanish is by most metrics the better choice. That with French being one of the better choices, most nations neighbor's have even less relevant languages as an obvious 2nd language choice.
That said, the easy answer is to learn what you have an interest in. Let the money follow that.
ソスケ
It seems that every time somebody writes an article like this, they emphasize that sort of ill-conceieved reason for learning a language. If they want to talk about cognitive benefits, they should stick to that.
So, I'd answer this with nope. Source: I'm swiss.
I'd suggest look at people who truly grew up bilingual.
Sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out something hard, I think/write in english (not my native language), and the thoughts seem to develop more logically (can't explain why though). So I guess it's not just learning, but using it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/foreign-language-de...
English is my second language and I was unable to understand the underlying emotional part of an expression. Imagine what Independence Day movie will look like without those inspirational speech. I'm getting better now. But still, there always lots of space to improve.
Ultimately, they concluded, as more countries and people across the world start to participate in a global economy and, consequentially, begin to learn foreign languages, more rational and favorable (read: risky) decisions will be made.
More rational..risky? How so?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_signs_in_Canada#Stop_sign
Tricky.