ABILENE, TX. — Learning a foreign language can increase the ability to learn faster.
According to research, It increases your memory span, solves problems quickly, and your metalinguistic ability is much greater.
Although the age to learn best is at six and seven years old, one can learn another language at any age.
“The older you get it’s a little bit harder to learn a foreign language but it’s not difficult...the most important is the motivation you can put to learn a foreign language,” says McMurry university associate Spanish professor, Jose Gomez.
When learning a new language, pronunciation or losing an accent can be a difficult matter. Professor Gomez gives this advice.
“The first main goal is to be able to communicate, if you are trying to avoid your accent, is to record yourself and compare, you have to have a deeper knowledge of the native pronunciation,” Dr. Gomez.
As far as for one’s health, being bilingual postpones Alzheimer’s and dementia by four to five years.
“It boosts your creativity for instance when you want to say something and don't remember the words you can say the same idea with different words using different phrases," says Dr. Gomez.
Another perk, employers are always on the lookout for bilingual employees.
While Spanish is the second most spoken language in the U.S., Spanglish is not too far behind.
"We are creating this Spanglish that’s why we have to try to teach the proper language with the time it’s going to happen, whether we like it, but unfortunately language evolves,” says Dr. Gomez.