What if you were told there was a way you may avoid dementia, strengthen your cognitive skills, and heighten your intelligence, and all you had to do was learn to strike up basic conversations in other languages? 

It probably sounds great, because if you’re like most you would love to be able to speak a second language.  But then, you recall your experience in high school foreign language – boring rote memorization and long hours with little progress – and perhaps it doesn’t sound so good any more.

But, what if you were told it would take only 10 days to be on your way to becoming bilingual? Most people recognize the many benefits of learning a foreign language:  You can travel to foreign countries and feel comfortable, be a more productive and enticing employee in today’s competitive job market, and immerse yourself in the vast cultures that surround you.

But now, the collective evidence from a number of recent studies suggests that the bilingual experience improves the brain’s so-called executive function — a command system that directs the attention processes that we use for planning, solving problems, and performing various other mentally demanding tasks.*

These processes include the ability to ignore distractions to stay focused, switching attention willfully from one thing to another, and holding information in the mind — like remembering a sequence of directions while driving.