BBC: Learning multiple languages

Hannah and the What in the World team have been investigating what it's like to learn multiple languages, and she's here to tell us more about it. Welcome to 6 Minute Englsih. 

Thank you so much for having me. 

And it's great to have you here. Now, in this programme, we help you improve your English. And maybe English is the first language you have tried to learn... or maybe you know a lot of languages. 

Well, someone who knows multiple language is a polyglot. Neil, are you a polyglot?

I speak a little bit of a few languages, but I couldn't say that I'm a polyglot. How about you?

I am a polyglot. 

Well, I feel really impressed and a bit intimidated! Now, Hannah, we always start our programme off with a question. So, here it goes. Which country has the most languages recognized by the government?

a) Zimbabwe    b) Switzerland   or   c)Bolivia ?

Well, we'll find out the answer at the end of the programme. Now, Hannah, you've been finding out about some of the benefits of being a polyglot. 

Yes, Neil, there's been lots of research about how knowing more than one language can change your brain. And this might have some health benefits too. At What in the World, we spoke to Professor Frederique Liegeois who's a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London.

Babies even before they speak have to tune into that languages around them to make sense out of what people say to them. And then when children start to speak several languages, they have to focus on the language and ignore another one when they're speaking. They alos have to be able to switch from one language to the other, depending on who they're speaking to. Later on in age, when adults have dementia, they seem to show symtoms later when they're bilinguals as opposed to monolinguals. We think that juggling several languages has helped them boost this brain efficiency which is a great advantage. It's like a brain workout!

Frederique explains that babies who grow up learning more than one language have to tune into the languages around them- they have to listen to each language. Over time, they become good at switching languages and ignoring the only they don't need in a conversation. 

Scientists think that juggling several languages is good for you. If you juggle several things, that means you deal with them all at the same time. 

Frederique describes being a polyglot as a brain workout. This means it is exercise for your brain that can make it stronger. Now, Hannah, I don't know about you. When I was younger and languages just seemed like another subject at school, I didn't really care so much, but when I worked abroade later in life, I was much more motivated and found it easier. How about you?

Quite the opposite actually. I did find it easier to learn languages at school and university, but I didn't have to learn these languages out of necessity. But my colleague Victoria Uwonkunda, she's a presenter and a journalist on the BBC World Service, she did. She speaks five languages and she understands eight. She learned those languages as her family moved from Rwanda, to Kenya and then to Norway when she was a teenager. Victoria says she was able to pick up Norwegian quite easily. 

If you pick up a skill, it means you learn it, usually by being in the environment where that thing happens rather than by being taught. 

But Victoria's parents found it much harder to learn Nowrwegian. Let's hear what Vic said on the What in the World podcast. 

First of all you have them coming to a new culture completely from everything they'd ever known. The language is new.These are people in their fifties, you know, but they soldiered on because if you want to work, you want to live there, you have to learn and they did. It wasn't easy, but I think also with us kids, we picked it up quite quickly, so if they were making a mistake we were also helping the along the way. So it kind of a way of paying back. "You helped us, you know, to keep our mother tongue and here we are going to help you."