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The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

scientificamerican.com

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Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#31

Post by fauigerzigerk »

theycallmemorty wrote: post #28
nfnaaron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Mono-lingual Canadian here with a question for both of you: What do adolescents in your countries think of learning english? Most anglophone Canadians start learning french in grade 4, unless their parents put them in an immersion program at a younger age. In Ontario we were required to take French until grade 9 and after that the VAST majority of us stopped because we hated it. Is it like that with English in other…

I think it's both at the same time. It's something they thrust down your throat in school from an early age and it is hated accordingly. But contrary to some of the other subjects, school is not the only place in which you're confronted with english. There's also games, music, movies, the web, talking to people from other countries and later science. So I think necessity and inevitability has replaced prestige as the dominant motivation over the past 15 or 20 years or so.

Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#32

Post by eru »

warfangle wrote: post #29
nfnaaron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm betting this is going to flip around in the next eighty years or so, and not towards Spanish. If China's economy doesn't crash and burn (and, if it does, if it does not fail to rise again from the ashes like ours did after the Great Depression), Chinese is likely to become an important trade language. It's a difficult language, but then again - for different reasons - so is English. I'm placing my bets that withi…

Interesting. But I doubt it will be that simple. Even if the Chinese will overshadow everything else in a few years, English will stay the dominant language in the western world. Latin limped on far over thousand years after the fall of its empire.

Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#34

Post by garnet7 »

djm wrote: post #5
ique wrote: post #3

Very 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 r…

> I didn't know languages education was voluntary in the US.

It's mandatory, but you get to choose which language to study. Choice is generally either Spanish, French, or German (and sometimes Japanese). Most kids choose Spanish (at least, that's what it seems like).

You take a few years of it before graduating high school.

And, as someone else posted, it's pretty universal that most people forget almost all of it as soon as they've satisified either their high school or else college requirements. I don't have any idea if colleges require foreign language credits or not.

Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#35

Post by henrikschroder »

theycallmemorty wrote: post #28
nfnaaron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Mono-lingual Canadian here with a question for both of you: What do adolescents in your countries think of learning english? Most anglophone Canadians start learning french in grade 4, unless their parents put them in an immersion program at a younger age. In Ontario we were required to take French until grade 9 and after that the VAST majority of us stopped because we hated it. Is it like that with English in other…

It's definitely a prestige language in Scandinavia, remember that most of our pop culture is in English.

Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#36

Post by nfnaaron »

warfangle wrote: post #29
nfnaaron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm betting this is going to flip around in the next eighty years or so, and not towards Spanish. If China's economy doesn't crash and burn (and, if it does, if it does not fail to rise again from the ashes like ours did after the Great Depression), Chinese is likely to become an important trade language. It's a difficult language, but then again - for different reasons - so is English. I'm placing my bets that withi…

You may be right, I'm not so sure. Chinese is difficult, not just because tones (~4 in Mandarin, ~8(?) in Cantonese) are important for meaning, but because you can't easily fake it or guess when you're reading or writing. The written language is character based, so you can't just spell out the sound of a new word, you have to know it. There are structural parts of some characters that can help you guess, but that's it.

So, I think, China is going to have to be almost as powerful in the rest of the world as they are in their own country before people are going to feel it's worth the effort to learn Chinese.

Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#37

Post by lionhearted »

nfnaaron wrote: post #10
ique wrote: post #3

Very 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…

> There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language.

Good point - never thought of it like that.

> I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America.

Really? I'd say going the opposite would have potentially more advantages. Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, Japanese, or Korean - something where you'd be one of the relatively few Americans bilingual in both languages and the country isn't fully bilingual in English speakers seems like it'd be more valuable than something in which quite a few Americans are fluent and bilingual.

Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#38

Post by davidw »

nfnaaron wrote: post #10
ique wrote: post #3

Very 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…

I think it's more a lack of opportunity to utilize a second language. If you spend any length of time somewhere where, yes, you can sort of get by with English, but it's not the native language, you really start to want to learn more. In the US, your opportunities are quite limited... Mexico or Quebec are your only major options, and that's a lot of travel for many people. From Padova where I am, on the other hand, I can be in Austria in 4 hours' driving time, Slovenia in 2 hours, Croatia in about 3, or on the other side, France or Switzerland in a bit more than half a day's drive.

Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#39

Post by bugs »

lionhearted wrote: post #37
nfnaaron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. Good point - never thought of it like that. > I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America. Really? I'd say going the opposite would have potentially more advantages. Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, Japanese, or Korean - something where you'd be one of the relatively few Americans bilingual in both…

Spanish would be of much more use to Americans because there are so many Spanish speakers in America especially in states near the border. I live in a southern state and many conversations here interchange Spanish and English words where best fit when speaking to other bilinguals

Re: The Neural Advantage of Speaking 2 Languages

#40

Post by jrgnsd »

theycallmemorty wrote: post #28
nfnaaron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Mono-lingual Canadian here with a question for both of you: What do adolescents in your countries think of learning english? Most anglophone Canadians start learning french in grade 4, unless their parents put them in an immersion program at a younger age. In Ontario we were required to take French until grade 9 and after that the VAST majority of us stopped because we hated it. Is it like that with English in other…

In South Africa we have 11, yes, eleven, official languages, with English being one of them.

It's easy for most people who's mother tongue is not English to learn it, as it's everywhere - government, media, advertisements, entertainment, you name it. So it's a necesity, not a status symbol.

It's also interesting to note that English kids generally struggle to pick up a second language, even if they live in a community that speaks another language, just because English is so pervasive, and there's no need for them to pick up a second language. This despite the fact that you have three languages at school, at least up to grade 9.

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