Learning Another Language: Involve More of Your Senses and Learn Faster

In my article How the Brain Processes Language, I mentioned that many of us can remember the little songs and rhymes we sang as we jumped rope or bounced a ball or played other childhood games. As that article mentions, it all depends on how the brain determines that the information should be stored. Studies have shown that the more of your entire physical self is involved, the better able you are to retain information. For example, when children are jumping rope and singing a little rhyme, they have virtually all of their senses involved. And that's why those rhymes are so well remembered, even after many years have passed.

When you think about learning another language, two senses that obviously come into play are hearing and speech. If you are also learning to read the language, then sight is necessary. But studies have shown that the more senses you have involved - at the same time - the more successful you will be at learning something. So the question becomes, "Is there a way to also involve our other senses, touch and smell, to help us learn another language?" And the answer, interestingly, is yes (although smell is tougher).

Because each of us learns differently, we all have a preferred way of learning, and this can carry over into acquiring a new language. No matter which method we are most comfortable with, however, it is best to use a variety of these proven methods to enhance and enliven our study of another language. The more we can get all our faculties involved, the better and faster we can learn.

One effective and much used method involves hearing a phrase and then repeating it. As mentioned in my article on how the brain processes language, listening and repeating uses both of the primary language centers of the brain. Wernicke's area allows us to understand words spoken to us and Broca's area allows us to speak. So we have hearing and speech involved. However, if you can also have the words in printed form, you can involve sight. Additionally, if you take the opportunity to write down what you are saying, now you've included touch and have four out of five senses involved. All this will help to stimulate your brain and make recall and usage much easier.

The effectiveness of this method becomes obvious when we think back to the beginning of the article. Most of us can remember little songs we sang while jumping rope or bouncing a ball or playing pat-a-cake. Those childhood "games" are really some of the most effective building blocks to learning to speak well. By applying these techniques as adults, we can really enhance our learning. The more we involve all of our senses, the more of our brain we involve, and the quicker we will learn and the more we will retain. And it's more fun, too.