Every person knows at least one language, which he routinely uses for speaking and writing. The majority of translators are bilingual, they learn a second language at a young age, until they master it. But first, it is important to mention the advantages of bilingualism. Improvement in linguistic and metalinguistic abilities, improvement of cognitive flexibility, concept formation, verbal abilities and general reasoning are some of the benefits of bilingualism.
Advantages of Bilingualism
“Learning to speak a different language, helps us to see a bigger world”
Until recently, researchers believed tat bilingualism wasn’t something upstanding for a child. It was thought that hurt the IQ and verbal development of the child. Over the years, we concluded that bilingualism inflict many advantages on brain development.
Firstly, bilingualism develops enhanced executive control, namely, the ability to manage higher cognitive processes, like memory, thought and solving problems. A bilingual person becomes able to inhibit responses and generally to emerge with a more flexible and agile mind. It is believed that bilinguals are more developed than others in tasks like sustained attention and switching between tasks effectively. This phenomenon is called by the researchers as bilingual advantage.
When we learn to speak a different language, we learn to see a bigger world.
The task where the bilingual advantage seems to be most persistent is the performance of the brain. Bilingualism helps the aging brain to function better. Elders who are bilingual seem to resist the effects of dementia far better than elders who are monolingual. The Canadian psychologist Ellen Bialystok found that patients who are bilinguals, showed symptoms of dementia more than four years after monolinguals did. The examination of the older persons was carried out in a clinic in Toronto.
Ellen, also, did a second research about bilingualism, this time with older people who developed Alzheimer’s disease. She found out that bilingual patients are diagnosed 4.3 years later than monolinguals do. So, bilingualism protects the brain from weakening. It seems like, when the brain continues to learn until a certain age, it has more capacity to keep functioning at a higher level.
Can a translator benefit from bilingualism?
Nowadays, the majority of people are trying to learn a second language. The language they are trying to learn can be another language in their country (ex. French in Canada) or a different language of another country. To master another language, you need to fully recognize its vocabulary and understand its basic grammar. People who are bilingual have greater sensitivity to language, more flexibility in thinking and a better ear for listening. It stimulates the learner to study about the culture and traditions of the other country.
The necessity of bilingualism in translation services is great. Translation is necessary, as soon as, two speakers of different languages need to converse, either directly or through a third party. Natural translation is translation done by people every day, who don’t have any special training. The majority of bilingual children use natural translation in their everyday life, like translating medical, administrative and legal information. So, we can all agree that translation is an innate skill for bilingual kids.
There is a major difference between a naturally bilingual translator and a dictionary translator. A naturally bilingual translator usually except of language, they know their culture of their country. The majority of words of a language reflect ethnical or political ideas and their meaning can differ in any language. Therefore, the meanings ascribe to the words differ from culture to culture. That’s why naturally bilingual translators are better than dictionary translators. The idea is that bilingual translators are also bicultural.
In conclusion, bilingualism is necessary and without that, the document may not be sufficient. That’s why the translator centers should introduce translators, who know that meanings and cultural background of their language are really important.
“Amper Translations” is the only translation service that every translator fulfills all the requirements and we carefully choose the bilingual freelance translators that we are going to corporate. That is why, every customer is fully satisfied with our services.