Video Fix: How language learning deepens connection

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Ever needed to find some motivation to learn a new language? Well, here you have it.

 

In this video, Louka Parry, an award-winning educator who speaks five languages and has travelled to 50 countries, explains how his decision to start learning languages, shortly after his Greek grandfather passed away, has deepened his connection with people.

Using memorable anecdotes, Louka explains to us how he managed to connect with the locals when he moved from monolingual Adelaide to a remote Aboriginal community to become a teacher, stating that he learnt two of the local languages, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjnatjara, through engaging in conversation with the community’s elders.

 

 

Not only does learning languages help to benefit you culturally, it can also be good for your brain! Louka explains that being proficient in multiple languages can delay the onset of dementia by at least five years and can even increase the density of the pre-frontal cortex of the brain.

As Louka makes clear in the video, being multilingual offers you profound freedoms, enabling you to forge deep connections with people whose cultures and customs are a world away from your own.

Enjoy!

 


Written by Emma Wynne, a Robert Schuman Trainee in the Terminology Coordination Unit. Emma holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from London Metropolitan University, with a dissertation focused on Western-Saudi Arabian relations regarding the war in Yemen. Before joining the Terminology Coordination Unit, Emma worked in PR in London.