The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
scientificamerican.com
The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
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Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#2Apparently there is also a disadvantage -- a higher risk of developing stuttering. I know from experience (n=1), but there is some interesting research on the topic as well:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=stuttering+bilingual+chi...
Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#3Very interesting article. Can't help but to think about the differences in countries educational systems. I'm Swedish, here we start studying English in second (numbers and such) and third grade (start with words and grammar). And then study it all the way up and through high-school.
Pretty much every Swede of a younger generation is fluent in English. Almost all people also spend several years in grades 6-9 studying a third language (Spanish, French or German is required to take if you don't have a learning disability, then you focus on English with that time instead).
It's easy for practically every country in the world to offer education in English because you can't live in a modern world without English. But it seems hard to motivate English speaking nations to study other languages. What languages would be of enough importance for, for instance, Americans, to make it obligatory education?
Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#4Apparently there is also a disadvantage -- a higher risk of developing stuttering. I know from experience (n=1), but there is some interesting research on the topic as well: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=stuttering+bilingual+chi...
Interesting -- I've also experienced that. Sometimes it's because I can't think of the word I want to use in one language, but an equivalent word in the other language gets stuck in my mind.
More info here: http://www.stutteringhelp.org/DeskLeftDefault.aspx?TabID=156
Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#5Very interesting article. Can't help but to think about the differences in countries educational systems. I'm Swedish, here we start studying English in second (numbers and such) and third grade (start with words and grammar). And then study it all the way up and through high-school. Pretty much every Swede of a younger generation is fluent in English. Almost all people also spend several years in grades 6-9 studying…
I'm from the UK and languages education here is (or at least was when I was at school) horrific. We didn't start learning a second language until secondary school (age 11/12) and the only options available were french and very basic german.
My french teacher couldn't speak french properly - she used to look stuff up in study guides and read it, pretty badly, to us. Much of the focus was on memorising lists of words rather than learning to build sentences etc. I don't think my experience was that unusual.
The argument that native english speakers shouldn't bother learning other languages because everyone else is learning english is common, but ridiculous. We all travel and migrate more than we used to and this trend will presumably increase over time.
Being the odd one out in a group because you only speak english feels like a disability in many places. It's especially embarrassing when the group speaks english to include you thus highlighting the difference even more.
I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US. I would have assumed that most children, especially those in California, would be required to learn spanish. Maybe some french for those living near the border with french speaking parts of Canada. Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's well established that learning a foreign language is easiest as a child. Perhaps the best way to make a monolingual nation multilingual is to adopt a policy of favouritism in hiring teachers for young children who are bi-lingual.
Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#6Very interesting article. Can't help but to think about the differences in countries educational systems. I'm Swedish, here we start studying English in second (numbers and such) and third grade (start with words and grammar). And then study it all the way up and through high-school. Pretty much every Swede of a younger generation is fluent in English. Almost all people also spend several years in grades 6-9 studying…
Nearly every American has two years of a foreign language in high school, and nearly every college requires two more years. I started Spanish in 7th grade and ended up with 5 years of study. However, I don't use is and as such, I've lost it.
Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#7Where's the control group? The study seems to compare two skills in bilingual kids only. It's interesting, but it doesn't seem to tell us anything about the advantage of speaking 2 languages.. like single language kids could read 2x as fast and the results wouldn't change.. or those words may happen to be easy ones anyway (seems somewhat likely if they happened to occur if those combinations of letters happened to appear in both languages).
Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#8Very interesting article. Can't help but to think about the differences in countries educational systems. I'm Swedish, here we start studying English in second (numbers and such) and third grade (start with words and grammar). And then study it all the way up and through high-school. Pretty much every Swede of a younger generation is fluent in English. Almost all people also spend several years in grades 6-9 studying…
I'm a big fan of bilingualism but if you're living in America and inclined to do business primarily in America, then the advantages of it are not so great next to the prodigious effort required to learn another language. Most Americans study Spanish, but then a) countries and people who speak only Spanish are not typically great economic prospects (compared to, say, Japan or Germany or what have you) and b) supposing one were to study Spanish and use it for one's career, one would be competing with American native speakers of Spanish who probably speak better Spanish than you.
If a country like, e.g., Japan/China/South Korea were a skip over the border instead of a 10+ hour plane ride away, I'd recommend every single person to study Japanese/Chinese/Korean. In Sweden, even if English weren't the lingua franca for Europe, you'd still be close physically and economically to multiple English-speaking countries.
Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#9Very interesting article. Can't help but to think about the differences in countries educational systems. I'm Swedish, here we start studying English in second (numbers and such) and third grade (start with words and grammar). And then study it all the way up and through high-school. Pretty much every Swede of a younger generation is fluent in English. Almost all people also spend several years in grades 6-9 studying…
Nearly every American has two years of a foreign language in high school, and nearly every college requires two more years. I started Spanish in 7th grade and ended up with 5 years of study. However, I don't use is and as such, I've lost it.
If you're like most Americans, you never really had it. Were you fluent? I've "studied" it in school for 6 years (MS, HS, Univ), and I'm not even close to fluent. I don't think the school system is equipped to do that.
Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages
#10Very interesting article. Can't help but to think about the differences in countries educational systems. I'm Swedish, here we start studying English in second (numbers and such) and third grade (start with words and grammar). And then study it all the way up and through high-school. Pretty much every Swede of a younger generation is fluent in English. Almost all people also spend several years in grades 6-9 studying…
It's not much of a perceived advantage to study a 2nd language as an American, because no matter where you go there's probably someone who speaks English, and chances are that wherever you go few if any speak the 2nd language that you studied as a kid.
There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. There's large payoff for people from non-English speaking countries to study English; it must be true or perceived as such, because it's such a widespread practice. We already know English.
I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America. It might also encourage us to have closer relations with Central and South America. I doubt it will happen.
Note: I understand there are many benefits to studying any 2nd language.