By Younas Chaudhary
I started learning the English alphabet while attending sixth grade at a local school in Pakistan. I was fluent in Punjabi, the language spoken in our village and was fluent in writing and speaking Urdu.
Classmates at my village school gave me a nickname “Shehri Babu” (City Boy) because I spoke Urdu at school. Interestingly, 98% of my classmates spoke only Punjabi, while Urdu was the language of city dwellers and the highly educated.
Research says that bilingual people multitask better, understand the world more and have lower incidence of dementia. When a bilingual person like me hears a word, they do not hear the entire word all at once, instead it comes in a sequence and gives multiple words in multiple languages.
One of the positive pleasures I have enjoyed being bilingual is the ability to help countless people struggling to speak English in public places. For example, at the airport, a middle-aged lady asked if I could translate her Urdu to English to the airport authorities. She was so thankful, and I felt humbled by my privilege of having mastery over multiple languages.
Another advantage to being bilingual is that you have a longer attention span listening to someone else talk without interruption, foreseeing where the conversation is going, and giving a logical response.
Today, over one-half to two-thirds of adults worldwide speak at least two languages, giving them better job opportunities. As a bilingual person, I can switch between languages giving me the ability to think through problems.
Being bilingual has allowed me to travel and understand cultures much better than a monolingual tourist. I can familiarize myself with and merge into an unfamiliar culture faster.
According to an article “The cognitive benefits of being bilingual,” knowing two languages can help one have greater attention to detail and the ability to learn a third language faster than monolingual people. The article adds that bilingualism appears to protect people against illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease. In a study of over 200 bilingual and monolingual patients with Alzheimer’s disease, bilingual patients reported showing incidence of the disease at 77.7 years of age, 5.1 years later than the monolingual average of 72.6.
In our family all my children are bilingual as my wife wanted them to communicate with their grandparents who were monolingual. I am grateful that we could raise them with a broad, empathetic outlook towards fellow human beings. Stay blessed!
Disclaimer
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not represent the opinions of any entity with which I have been, am now, or will be affiliated. Further, I make no warranty regarding the accuracy or effectiveness of my recommendations, and readers are advised to consult other advisors as well as their own judgments in making business decisions.
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