Explained: The importance of learning new languages, even today

Polish-born, UK-based science writer Marek Kohn argues that plural language use has become even more important in a divided world — it helps us understand one another better.

In a world where we can use Google Translate for any phrase in an unfamiliar language, does learning new languages remain as useful as it used to be?

Polish-born, UK-based science writer Marek Kohn argues that plural language use has become even more important in a divided world — it helps us understand one another better.

“Integrating languages within communities or within individual minds is a way to turn competition into co-operation, suspicion into trust,” Kohn writes in his new book, Four Words for Friends: Why Using More Than One Language Matters Now More Than Ever.’

Kohn makes his arguments from perspectives of psychology, evolutionary thought, politics and literature. He explores how people acquire languages; how they lose them; how they can regain them; and how different languages may affect people’s relationships with each other.

He cites research that suggests knowing more than one language boosts the part of the brain that directs attention to an ideal focus area and suppresses unwise impulses. “When a brain contains two languages, the executive system must select the appropriate one, and prevent the other from intruding on it,” he writes.

In its review, The Guardian makes a reference to Brexit, asking whether the British disdain for foreign languages has been partly responsible for this. It cites a study that suggests one factor that worked to Britain’s disadvantage in negotiations was “the 27 other nations’ fluent grasp of the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, unmatched by any corresponding British familiarity with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung or Bild”.