My background knowledge on the relationship between our brain and language learning was very basic to none- I simply assumed the right hemisphere of the brain was responsible for listening and the left hemisphere was responsible for everything else. I knew there were parts of the brain that were responsible for certain roles, but I did not know which was used for what. But after reading the chapters on how the brain handles language learning, I learned that there were specifics parts of the brain which were responsible for specific aspects, such as Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area. Wernicke’s area, for example, was the most important part for comprehending speech, and Broca’s area was important for encoding. The chapter also mentioned that the area in front of the fissure of Rolando was responsible for motor functioning, which was related to the study of speaking and writing. Although we are not able to sense the process happening in our brains, the brain uses these certain parts of the brain to process the aspects of language learning, showing us how complex our brain and language learning really is.
Since my first language was Korean, I had to translate english words to Korean in order to fully conceptualize and process the meaning and eventually to write and read english. What I did was I used my knowledge of Korean as a basis and translated the english words to fully understand in order to use english in my everyday life. Even while I was learning Japanese, I used Korean as the basis for conceptualizing and processing Japanese. However, as I became more comfortable with english, I used english to process Japanese. I surprised myself as I was doing this unconsciously, and is still amazed that the brain had the ability to do so.
The readings taught me that while some words in some languages could be similar to other words in other languages, all languages are slightly different and their words have different meanings. This motivated me to actually learn new languages in the future, and while I could use Korean or english to process other languages and use them for my understanding, each language would still be different.
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