Those learning a new language say that drinking alcohol in moderation can help them speak the language better. In a way, this also makes sense, because the drink relaxes them and overcomes their nervousness. However, on the other hand, it has also been shown that alcohol damages cognitive and motor functions, negatively affects memory and attention, and leads to excessive self-confidence and self-praise. So do people actually speak a foreign language better when/after drinking alcohol because of knowledge or is it just courage?
To this question they are answered British and Dutch researchers, which are on conducted a language experiment on 50 German-speaking people. They were all educated at Maastricht University in the Netherlands on the border with Germany. Every participating person is had to complete a casual two-minute conversation with the interviewer in Dutch. Half of the respondents drank water before the conversation, the other half an alcoholic drink.
There are conversations filmed, then analyzed them two Dutch speakers, who did not know which people consumed alcohol and which did not. There were participants also asked, let them judge for themselves, how fluent they spoke.
They found that alcohol did not affect self-assessments – those who drank were no more confident or satisfied with their speech than those who drank water. They actually were more successful in speaking according to the researchers' analyses. The two Dutch speakers estimated that people in the alcohol group spoke more fluently and had better pronunciation. However, scores for grammar, vocabulary and argumentation were similar between the groups.
The authors note that the dose of alcohol was low, but a larger amount does not have these beneficial effects and may have the opposite effect, leading to slurred speech. The study's respondents also knew they were going to drink alcohol, so it's unclear whether their speech improved because of the biological or psychological effects of the alcohol. The authors did not measure people's mental or emotional states in the study, so they cannot say with certainty whether there is a likelihood that a moderate dose of alcohol actually reduces anxiety and thereby increases professionalism.
He might have alcoholpositive effects on your speech, but as the researchers warn, only in moderate amounts. They also write that alcohol doesn't necessarily have a positive effect on your speech. You can you are one of those people for whom a glass of drink completely confuses the brains and makes their speech even worse. So it's probably better to avoid it. 🙂
More information:
journals.sagepub.com
