Alcohol Consumption Might Help Improve Foreign Language Skill

By JUICE Malaysia  •  27 Oct 2017 in News

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Alcohol is known to impair cognitive and motor functions, yet many drinkers swear by alcohol to make them “loosen up” in tense situations. Sounds familiar right? Pretty sure we’ve been there before, especially after two pints or more.

In a recent collaborative research by University of Liverpool, King’s College London, and Maastricht University, low doses of alcohol can also improve a person’s ability to speak in a second language – partly due to the intoxicants that help alleviate anxiety, thus the increase in self-confidence.

What the researchers did for the study is examine the behaviour of 50 native German speakers who are studying in the Netherlands and had recently picked up the Dutch language in writing, reading, and speech. After given a drink in random (some which contained alcohol and some didn’t), the candidates were then rated by two Dutch native speakers who didn’t know who consumed alcohol and who didn’t, before coming to the conclusion that those who had consumed alcohol received better ratings from the native Dutch speakers.

Source: Know Your Meme

“Our study shows that acute alcohol consumption may have beneficial effects on the pronunciation of a foreign language in people who recently learned that language,” said Inge Kersbergen, from the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, who was involved in the study. “This provides some support for the lay belief (among bilingual speakers) that a low dose of alcohol can improve their ability to speak a second language.”

Well, while that’s cool and all, we’ve to keep in mind that this is research used only a small amount of alcohol. More research will be conducted to understand if there’s more to it than the anxiety-reducing properties of alcohol. So until then, drink moderately and most importantly, don’t drink and drive y’all.

See what we have to say about the first Chivas Collab: ETM here.