Language learning

English is a tool you can use to do many things. Since English is a global language, you can use it to learn things from different cultures.

A fun way to learn English is cooking. You have to know how to talk about the ingredients, measurements, textures, times and flavor descriptions, and explain the process. And, if you teach cooking in English, your pronunciation needs to be clear enough for others to understand.

Accordingly, in 2015, two English language teachers in Manchester, UK, set up a program called Heart and Parcel. Karolina Koscien and Clare Courtney gather immigrant women together to cook dumplings. Why dumplings? Because "parceled foods" are universal to all cultures. Women from different countries can all come together with their recipes and share their unique histories with each other. Besides language learning, social connections are formed that help the women thrive in their new home.

According to CNN, learning a new language can rewire your brain and help stave off Alzheimer’s disease later in life. Ellen Bialystok, from York University in Toronto, Canada, found that bilinguals are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease four to five years later than their monolingual counterparts.

When it comes to the beneficial effects bilingualism has on the brain, education levels do not matter. In fact, the most profound effects were found in people who were illiterate and had no education. Bilingualism was their only real source of mental stimulation, and as they got older, it provided protection for their aging brains.

More experience with bilingualism leads to greater cognitive changes. The earlier you start being bilingual, and the more intense your bilingual experience is on a daily basis, the more changes happen in your brain.

Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator—the tech accelerator that supports early-stage, growth-driven companies through education, mentorship and financing—has funded a number of successful start-ups including Dropbox, Airbnb and Reddit. Despite this, in 2013 he made a controversial comment about how he evaluates potential companies. He managed to both offend many foreign-born Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and reveal a prejudice common among venture capitalists.

“One quality that’s a really bad indication is a CEO with a strong foreign accent,” Graham told Inc. magazine. “I’m not sure why. It could be that there are a bunch of subtle things entrepreneurs have to communicate and [you] can’t [do that] if you have a strong accent. Or, it could be that anyone with half a brain would realize you’re going to be more successful if you speak idiomatic English, so they must just be clueless if they haven’t gotten rid of their strong accent.”

At the age of 20, Montreal linguistics student Georges Awaad can already speak 19 different languages, most of which he taught himself through internet videos, music and conversation with friends. “I’m a very auditory person, so I try to expose myself as much as possible to the language, by listening to music, videos, films if I find them, and by listening to conversations and having them with friends,” he says.

He also speaks Mandarin, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Russian, Hebrew, Romanian, Swedish, Georgian, Armenian, Cantonese, Korean, Esperanto, and Dutch. Despite his achievement, Awaad doesn’t believe he has any exceptional skills when it comes to learning languages. His secret, he says, is that he finds it fun.

 Awaad says that “learning a new language can open your mind and heart to so many other people around the world and new cultures. You can understand the world so much better and on a much deeper level."