Brain training through languages

A few of the many world languages

I  just completed my daily hour's language practice on Duolingo, and my brain is tired - which is a good thing. Recently the media have been touting the importance of keeping one's brain active throughout life. Since I am a self-confessed language nerd, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and exercise my little grey cells by learning different languages.  Here is my brain/language training daily routine.

Great advice!

Spanish.  I begin each Duolingo session with the Spanish language for a brain warm up.  Since I have been working on acquiring Spanish since I was a child, I can generally breeze through the Spanish lesson. I sense that I have a 'Spanish brain' somewhere in my mind, and after a few responses in Spanish, I can enter into that other brain and put my responses on automatic.  Quick responses are great for communication in Spanish, but not so effective for brain training, since I don't have to do much hard thinking.

Serenity Prayer in Portuguese (much needed by language learners!)

Portuguese.  I choose Portuguese next because it takes effort to keep Spanish and Portuguese separate in my mind.  They are sister languages, both descended from Latin, and are certainly similar, but they also have significant differences in vocabulary, grammar, and especially pronunciation.  I can move from automatic responses to getting my brain cells firing. 

In my last Duolingo session, I lost a heart by translating 'pocket' as bolsillo in Spanish rather than the Portuguese bolso; I also lost another heart by choosing the Portuguese word leva for 'wear', making a parallel with Spanish llevar.  Portuguese expresses 'wear' with either the verbs veste or usa.  Thank goodness I didn't lose my third heart and have to start the lesson over. 

French calendar.

French.    French is next on my practice list.  I have studied French several times in my life but with large gaps of time in between study, so my grammar is still pretty well intact, but my vocabulary is fairly minimal. And I won't even mention my pronunciation.  So anything I can get correct in French is a bonus.  My brain moves out of the Spanish/Portuguese area (which I'd be willing to bet they share) and into a new French space.  I don't mix up French with Spanish or Portuguese, but I do mix it up with English.  I lost one heart by writing French dauphin as English dolphin.

Irish cities.  Good opportunity for language practice!

Irish.    And now that my brain is thinking linguistically, I tackle Irish.  Oh my.  Almost every sentence looks and sounds like a mystery to me.  No meaning comes through automatically to give me a hint.  I have to analyze every word separately.  The nouns I have to check for singular or plural endings and definite and indefinite articles.  The verbs I need to check for position in the sentence and for endings which specify the subjects.  And I love it!  When I am doing Irish, I am completely absorbed in the thought process. It is a mini-vacation from ordinary life.

So if you would like to challenge your mind and enjoy learning about other languages and cultures,  a regime of language learning may be for you.  Now if I could just get into a physical routine for my body.....   

Just about my speed!