New evidence suggests that learning Chinese may train a host of cognitive abilities not utilized in the study of other languages.
Chinese has a distinctly different effect on the brain. A study by researchers at the Wellcome Trust in the UK found the tones, sounds, and script of Chinese require the use of both temporal lobes of the brain. English speakers only use the left temporal lobe of the brain for language. The difference results from Chinese speakers using tones to distinguish between different words and their meanings.
Learning to hand write Chinese also seems to make you smarter, by aiding in the development of motor skills, learning shapes and letters, and the visual identification of graphics. Unlike English, which is mostly linear and written from left to right, Chinese characters have a complex structure. Writing characters involves strokes in several directions with sequential movements. These movements activate neural activity in the working, thinking, and spatial memory of the brain.
Evidence also indicates that learning Chinese makes you better at math. Researchers from New Zealand observed that children whose native language is Chinese appear to gain a greater understanding of mathematical concepts than their English speaking counterparts. During the natural acquisition process of Chinese, the student is learning and reinforcing basic mathematical concepts. Character writing involves skills such as counting, grouping, ordering, and identifying similarities and differences, which are essentially math skills.
Another study from New Zealand published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences found that “native Chinese and English speakers treat numbers with different cortical parts of the brain,” and concluded that different language systems such as Chinese and English shape the way non-language information is processed.
While the research on cognition and Chinese language learning is not comprehensive or exhaustive, it does suggest that the cognitive benefits of learning Chinese are significant and merit further study.
The original content of this post can be found at Asia Society.