[0:00]Hey, hey. How many languages do you speak? One, two, maybe even more. Hello. Unaongea lugha ngapi? Moja, mbili, tatu, ama mingine? Well, today we're talking about polyglots, people who speak more than one language and that's actually both of us. Aujourd'hui, on va parler de polyglotes, donc les personnes qui parlent beaucoup de langues. You're gonna hear from polyglots talking about why they love languages, how they learn them and you're going to find out what being a polyglot does to your brain. I dag skal vi snakke om de menneskene som snakker flere språk, og så skal vi høre om tipsene om hvordan du kan også lære flere språk. And we're gonna share some tips in case you want to pick up a new language. Sproza n'ukuzakubabwira uko mwamenyo mwangashobora kugira ngo mwige indimi nyinshi. I'm Hannah Gelbart. And I'm Victoria Owongunda. And this is What in the world from the BBC World Service.
[0:55]So Vic, most people in the world speak more than one language and there are loads of countries that actually have more than one national language. That is not the case here in the UK. We're not known for our language learning abilities, but we do learn languages at school. I learn French and Italian at school and Spanish and I study Spanish and Portuguese at university. What languages do you speak? So I usually say when people ask that question because I speak five, but I try to say I speak now I understand eight. Eight? Yeah. Go on, give me the list. There is a cheat list on that. So my mother tongue is Kinyarwanda from Rwanda. And French, which I learned from young age, and Swahili, and English, which I learned at the same time when we moved to Kenya, and Norwegian. So the other three is because Swedish and Danish they kind of similar to Norwegian. So I can understand like Emilia who is part of your team. When she's speaking Swedish, I'm speaking Norwegian, we understand each other perfectly well. Same with Kirundi, which is the mother tongue for people in Burundi, which is similar to Kinyarwanda, so hence eight. I would love to see how big your brain is. I mean, I don't know. I'm I'm scared to look in there. There are so many things up there. Well, we're going to hear today about what happens in someone's brain when they do speak multiple languages. It's not just words and grammar though, isn't it? It's also like idioms and expressions, every language has loads of expressions, so One of the ones that's hard to translate in English is like it's raining cats and dogs. In Spanish, you might say like esto de mala leche, which means like I'm in a really bad mood, but it literally means like I'm off milk. There are so many, for example, in Norway, in Norwegian, which is one of my favorite, is okpa to say. Basically, is buying a cat in a bag. So it means you're buying bad you're getting a bad deal. So if you buy say an apartment or something and it's you know, you you paid more for what it's worth. And you just think why why the cat? Why the bag? Why, why the cat, why the bag? Exactly. Nobody can explain that, but I just love it and I love using it all the time. I want to take a quick pause now. I want to introduce you to someone. This is Ilja, she's a Turkish polyglot and she's studying in Italy. I'm a political science student and right now I'm learning my tenth language. Languages have been a huge part of my life since my childhood and basically as a child, I started teaching myself languages out of precocity, but over time, it became something much bigger. Right now, I can speak Turkish, French, Italian, English, Spanish, German, Russian, Dutch, Swedish, and this year, I'm learning Finnish. Why do I love learning languages? Well, I grew up in Istanbul, where I was constantly exposed to different cultures, which I think kind of gave me a fear of missing out because I think life is too short to be lived in one language as one person. Right now, I can go to a lot of countries and just communicate easily in the local language, or I can read books, listen to songs in many different languages, and understand everything. So Vic, how did you learn all the languages that you speak? So for me, um, so obviously Rwanda being it was a Belgian colony. So hence the French. So I grew up speaking those languages together, French and Kinyarwanda. And then obviously with the history of the country, having to flee, having to leave, um, go to Kenya. They don't speak none of those two languages. So you have to learn it's a necessity for for your survival for you being there. So we learn Swahili and and English at the same time. So we're in schools, at least me and my siblings. We're in school where you are going to school where you're learning all these other subjects. In a language you've never spoken before, but at the same time as you are learning it, same thing happened. We got to Norway. You're having to learn another language where all the subjects other than English obviously are in Norwegian. But at the same time you're learning you're going through the, I am going to school. Well at the same time you're meant to understand history in this language, like in in Kenya, I figured the quickest way to learn is to be in the streets, is to be with the kids in the neighborhood. It's to go to the market. Market is the best place to learn the language. You know because you you learn the international you learn how people speak how people behave. And you can also watch and learn. And obviously being in Kenya people are speaking in various languages and you pick up but usually Swahili is the is the language that most people use because they have other different languages. So it's the language all people have together. And it came easily to me because I was able to kind of be with the neighborhood kids and, you know, being in school and pick up the words that people are using and that saying and of course in in class, they will be like, well, that's not the correct word for this. So you kind of have as you did in school you have the proper way because you're having a teacher with you. And the good thing about being in Norway and learning Norwegian is everything we consume in terms of TV, films. It's all subtitled. So if it's a film in German, it's in German. Everything else is subtitled. So because we had learned English, and we could understand English, it was easy to hear whether it was friends, whether it was Titanic, whichever was, you know, when we came at the time. You would you'll be able to understand the English, but you can see the words in Norwegian which help. There are so many benefits to learning multiple languages. Like you say, surviving, thriving in multiple communities, you can travel, you can connect to people. Now there is a bunch of research that shows that being bilingual or multilingual is actually good for your brain. And here to talk about that is Professor Frederick Liégeois. She's a cognitive neuroscientist at University College, London. Growing up in a bilingual or multilingual environment can have many advantages for your brain. This is because it triggers what we call brain adaptation. The brain is changing its shape and efficiency to adjust to the environment. Babies, even before they speak, have to tune into the languages around them to make sense out of what people say to them. And then when children start to speak several languages, if you think about it, they have to focus on one language and ignore another one where they're speaking. They also have to be able to switch from one language to the other, depending on who they're speaking to. And these are what we call cognitive control skills. And a lot of brain imaging studies are showing that from early childhood to adolescence to adulthood, these brain regions and network are the ones that are stronger in people who are bilingual and multilingual. This could be why later on in age, when adults have dementia, they seem to show symptoms later when they're bilingual, as opposed to monolinguals. We think that juggling several languages has helped them really boost this brain efficiency. So being multilingual or bilingual is boosting your brain efficiency, which is a great advantage. It's like a brain workout. So there are like medical benefits as well. How has being able to speak multiple languages influenced your life? Like how has it improved your life? The benefits are you get to meet so many different people. And language is an opener. It's a nice breaker anyway. I'm sure you've you've noticed when you've traveled, right? So whenever I go, one of the best countries I love to travel to is Italy. I do not speak Italian. But I just the moment you just say you just start speaking, they think, oh my God, she speaks our language and they start speaking and I'm like, I really don't. But they are so warm and they are so happy. They want to because that is the connection and that's the humanity that I find is the greatest benefit. And obviously, whether I'm traveling for work or for pleasure, just meeting people, hearing their stories, and the moment you've broken that ice, it's great. And also for me, I find that my memory is sharper because obviously, so much is happening. As you said, you don't know how big my brain is. I really don't either. But it it just I'm on top of things. Maybe it's because of how I was made, but I also think some of it has to do with the fact that I can think, switch in various languages. And also there are codes that come with those languages and the cultures that are connected to the languages. Of all the languages you speak, I'm fascinated by the Norwegian connection and how different that must have been from all of the other languages that you spoke up to that point. What was it like when you moved there when you had to learn it, um and and how different is it? It's actually of the five. Let me discount Kinyarwanda of the four, Norwegian is the easiest. Easiest? Yeah. In the sense that the way they conjugate is straight forward. Whereas in French, for example, you've got sixteen ways of saying or using a verb. Norwegians have simplified matters. It's you've got your present, you've got your past, maybe near past, you've got your future. Let's not complicate life. So you will say I go, you go, we go. She goes, he goes. No, no. In Norwegian is I go, you go, we go. They go. So and same if you're going to go to the past you just have to do. You learned it as a teenager, but your parents had to learn it as adults, which I imagine was so much harder. Oh my God. I I look back and I don't pity them because First of all, you're having them coming into a new culture completely from everything they've ever known. They were well traveled before, so it wasn't like a big culture coming in but A, the language is new. The way of being is different to what they were used to. And now you're putting on top of it language. These are people in their fifties, you know, but they they soldiered on because as much as we have English and everybody speaks and understands English from three upwards, Norwegian is the only language that you can use and you will need to use if you choose to stay and live there because everywhere you go is Norwegian. It's it's their language. It's the language that is used. So if you want to work if you want to live there, you have to learn and they did. I give them pros because it's just it wasn't easy, but because again, I think also with us kids because we had seen what they had done with our mother tongue. So it was just easy to We picked it up quite quickly. So if they were making a mistake, you know, making a sentence because obviously they're having to think how does how is a sentence built in Kinyarwanda or French or Swahili. Now they have to rethink. Then you find it's different and it is different in the way sometimes Norwegian can be. So we're also helping them along the way. So it kind of a way of paying back. You helped us get to this, you know, to keep our mother tongue. And here we are going to help you kind of find a way to navigate this new reality. So it was a challenge and they rose to it. They sound really inspirational actually. They are my parents. They're amazing. They're amazing. And the fact that it is harder for adults to learn languages is backed up by the science. So let's hear from Professor Liégeois again. Learning a new language at any age will have some advantages because it's a brain workout. And in older age, we don't use so much other regions involved in memory, learning new skills, learning to articulate. So by learning a new language, you're going to use those brain regions and networks. So you give yourself a chance to strengthen those connections and improve your brain efficiency. So at any age, learning a new language could be the key to really maintaining your brain health for much longer. Well, no matter how old you are when you learn a language, we all dream, right? And I don't know if you've had this experience, but when I'm immersed in a culture or spend a long time somewhere, I start dreaming in the in different languages. What languages do you dream in? Hannah. Um you know what? A, I really really think about what I'm dreaming in because A, there's so much is happening. But B, also depends on who is in the dream. So if it's my family members, because obviously, other than my sister and German who has another language that none of us have. When we are together, it's a it's a mix of everything. So if one starts saying something but this word is not coming quicker, they know that they can use this language. So if I have them in my dreams, it's just a coffee of languages. Everybody saying this, everybody saying that, but we all understand. And if it's my childhood friends, it's definitely in Kinyarwanda despite the fact that we A, they live in Norway or we've met again in in the UK or we've met in America or we've it just kind of automatically goes to the individual in the dream. And I don't know about you, but I learn all of my languages quite a long time ago. The thought of picking up a new language now and putting in the hours and starting from scratch, whether it's Arabic or Russian or Mandarin, like it gives me the heebie-jeebies. Another fantastic English expression. Makes me feel really, really overwhelmed, which is how a lot of people feel when they think about learning a language, even for polyglots. So let's hear from again. For me, Russian was really tough at first. I remember crying over grammar tables, verb aspects, noun cases. It just felt impossible to learn it until I discovered Russian music and created a personal connection to the language. Because I think the most difficult language to learn is the one that you don't enjoy learning. Once I created some sort of emotional connection to the language, I just started singing along the lyrics and acquiring the words naturally and didn't feel as difficult as before. So I wouldn't say languages are inherently difficult to learn, it's just all about your mindset. Igel talked about mindset there, and it's true because how you approach language learning can really impact how much you get out of it. And it is true that people who already speak languages may have certain advantages when it comes to learning new ones. So now let's hear from Lisa who works for the language learning app Ling. I often get the questions which language are difficult and which languages are easy and what makes them so. Well, it comes down to a few factors, I'd say. First up, your native language is your secret weapon. If you speak English, learning Spanish or Dutch feels pretty doable. They're really close together. There's similar words, familiar grammar, but if you're diving into Mandarin or Arabic, you'll really want to buckle up. There's different sentence structures, vocabulary that make it a whole new ball game. Second, writing systems also make a huge difference. If a language uses the same alphabet as English, again like German. Uh, reading and writing are no biggie, but if you're learning Japanese, there's three writing systems. You've got some serious uh memorization ahead of you. Third up, grammar is another major factor. Some languages play really nice, like Indonesian. It has a simple structure, there's no verb conjugations. And then there's other languages like Russian that throw six different cases. Then we have pronunciation that can be a total game changer. So Spanish and Italian, they're super phonetic. You get what you see. Uh, English on the other hand, that's a total mess. And then we have tonal language, which is like Thai where tiny change in pitch can mean the difference between saying mom or horse. And finally, accessing learning resources is key. If you want to learn French or Spanish, congrats. You've got endless apps, Netflix, TikTok, memes, helping you out. But learning Icelandic or Mongolian, well, good luck finding a lot of resources here. And what about you, Vick? What tips do you have for learning a new language? Just go and immerse yourself with the people. I found it the easiest if you are where you can actually be forced to speak it. That's why I say, you know, I don't use French a lot, but I make an effort to make sure that I'm speaking or I'm listening, or when I go to to Paris, I just make sure that I just insist that I speak it and people speak back to me. So I say go and be with the people and music. As one of our contributors said, music is a great teacher as well because if you're able to listen, there is the international. Obviously, international would depend if they are native speakers, or if they are Americans, or if they are British, or whatever, but you learn words, you can look them up, and these days, I mean, we've got apps. That are helping people do. And another tip is never be afraid of speaking to people because obviously you think, oh, I've got an accent. Oh, I can't really speak like they do. It is what it is. They will never be able to speak your language or the other languages as well as good as the native. So, be bold and go out there and just speak. Vic, muito obrigada, muchisimas gracias. Merci beaucoup. De nada.
[17:56]Um, inoshak. Asante Sana. Okoze cane. Thank you so much for coming into the studio and thank you for joining us. You can leave us a comment. You can get in touch anytime on Instagram, on WhatsApp. Leave us a comment below in any language. We will do our best to try and translate it using the multitude of languages available here at the BBC from colleagues like Vic. I'm Hannah Gelbart. This is what in the world from the BBC World Service and we'll be back with another episode soon. Adios. Ciao.
