Another great one, Don. Older (in the calendar sense of the word) people often took my Spanish classes for exactly the reasons you listed, but a couple of people took them to improve their cognitive ability post-stroke. And yes, someone needs to get on with the nurse home alternative 😊
Another excellent column. I’m encouraged to take heart in regards to my aging brain. BTW, I don’t know whether word puzzles and listening to classical music help in growing new mental muscle, but I do believe it helps tone the brain brawn we still have.
I exercise my brain with language challenges all the time. In addition to puzzles, I write, which makes it necessary to access memory and reformulate it into articulated patterns of thought. I will say, however, that my attempt to learn Spanish several years ago was extremely frustrating. I had always been good at foreign language and I still had an intuitive understanding of grammar but I could not remember vocabulary no matter how hard I tried. The grammar was logical, conceptual, but the vocabulary was pure memorizing and I no longer had enough mental acuity for that.
Another great one, Don. Older (in the calendar sense of the word) people often took my Spanish classes for exactly the reasons you listed, but a couple of people took them to improve their cognitive ability post-stroke. And yes, someone needs to get on with the nurse home alternative 😊
Another excellent column. I’m encouraged to take heart in regards to my aging brain. BTW, I don’t know whether word puzzles and listening to classical music help in growing new mental muscle, but I do believe it helps tone the brain brawn we still have.
I exercise my brain with language challenges all the time. In addition to puzzles, I write, which makes it necessary to access memory and reformulate it into articulated patterns of thought. I will say, however, that my attempt to learn Spanish several years ago was extremely frustrating. I had always been good at foreign language and I still had an intuitive understanding of grammar but I could not remember vocabulary no matter how hard I tried. The grammar was logical, conceptual, but the vocabulary was pure memorizing and I no longer had enough mental acuity for that.