Learn another language

When children are growing up, they are at an opportune period to acquire skills which would take an adult decades. So it should be mandatory for preschools and primary schools to be multilingual. The only way to efficiently and effectively reach native level pronunciation is before the age of 14. After that, the brain cannot accurately replicate foreign phonemes without “immersion”. When a young child learns their mother tongue, it doesn’t take much to learn an additional few languages because at their stage of life, the child’s primary job is to learn how to communicate to prepare it for future life. Then the brain will absorb languages which are not part of the same family. On the contrary, for an adult to learn Basque and Korean from their mother tongue Russian, it will be a lifelong journey to fluency. Some will never reach the native level of thinking and pronunciation; many Polynesian languages have barely ten constants, so to learn English, which has almost 50 phonemes, sounds such as “j” [dʒ], “z” [z], “zh” [ʒ] are almost impossible to pronounce. “Luckily” these islands have been thoroughly exploited by the British, and many Polynesians are bilingual with English.

To “think” in another language is also extremely eye opening. It seems not to be a mere coincidence that the two Axis powers Japan and German are now some of the leading countries in their region. In these languages, the verb (or the second verb, in the case of German) comes at the very end of a sentence. This syntax wires the brain differently; it comes naturally to native speakers but there is a general requirement to stop and listen to understand somebody. This awareness contributes to an individual’s ability to collaborate with others. Germany and Japan are known for their high quality industrial goods and attention to detail. If children grow up with their brains wired in multiple languages, it may just exponentiate social development as multilingualism becomes the norm. Future generations will be able to think differently to monolinguals, and even bilinguals. India and China have the largest populations in the world and both have hundreds of regional dialects - it was necessary to know multiple dialects in order to communicate and trade. This increases the likely hood of success within a population.

Scientific studies confirm that multilingualism boosts creative and critical thinking, comprehension skills and the ability to multitask. There is no reason not to raise children in a multilingual environment if possible. It opens doors to different cultures and values which encourages empathy and cooperation. Language learning is painless for young children so making preschools and primary schools multilingual comes at no cost, considering the benefits it will have for future generations.

So how does one start? I reccommend the Michel Thomas method. Most people havent heard of it before, but its an amazing imersive method that is purely audio. Although people might question the lack of writing and reading, if you really think about it, speaking and listening are the first mediums of language that children pick up, and then they gradually learn how to read and write. The Michel Thomas Method taught me Spanish, Italian, German, French, Portuguese and Russian in a short amout of time by focussing on verbs and their grammatical conjugations. Vocabulary can be memorized later. Reading and writing in Spanish, Italian, German, French and Portuguese are not so hard to pick up as a grown adult anyway, since thye also use the roman alphabet. The idleness in language learning is inpart due to the ineffectiveness of teaching, and Michel Thomas is the perfect solution to this - it teaches you the hardest and most inportant aspects of verb conjugation and grammer and leaves the easy part, vocabulary acquisition, up to you.