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Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

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Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#71

Post by kiba »

asdf21 wrote: post #38
smt88 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context switching between programming languages bears no subjective similarity to human language. As someone who knows 2 human languages and 6-8 computer languages, it's just not at all similar. They don't use the same parts of your brain, for starters. You can't describe a dream in Java.

I know French and English and several programming languages, and they do seem very similar to me. >You can't describe a dream in Java. Before you write any code, you first imagine how the application should work. So yes, a person can codify something from their imagination into Java.

Programming languages are similar enough that people can easily pick up other languages. Not so with natural languages, which required more effort.

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#72

Post by giovani »

OldFatCactus wrote: post #64

What's the best way to learn a new language?

I don't know about any research on the matter, but I can say 2 things that worked very well for me:

1) take an intensive course first

2) then live in a country where the main language was the one I learned

Granted, point 2 isn't easy, but nothing can beat it. The most important point is to use the language on a regular basis. If you don't, you'll forget it quickly.

[edited: formatting]

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#73

Post by cstrahan »

zzzcpan wrote: post #62
JamesBarney wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the best way to evaluate a study is to read the first few lines and guess at how offended the 8 researches are who wrote the paper. Also I would describe the following as skeptical more than offended. > Because of enduring experience of managing two languages, bilinguals have been argued to develop superior executive functioning compared with monolinguals. Despite extensive investigation, there is, howe…

> "bilinguals have been argued to develop superior executive functioning compared with monolinguals" This is the one I find very problematic. They made up an entire unscientific claim to disprove.

> They made up an entire unscientific claim to disprove.

Search for "bilingual smarter". Here are a handful of articles that suggest that many, many people have already put forth (or at least entertained the possibility of) these claims over the years:

---

Does being bilingual make you smarter? | British Council

Research Finds That Bilingual People Are Smarter, More Creative And Empathetic | Lifehack

Are Bilingual People Smarter Than People Who Speak One Language? | JSTOR Daily

Why Bilinguals Are Smarter | Association for Psychological Science

How Being Bilingual Makes You Smarter | Grammarly

Why Bilingual Kids Are Smarter | Bilingual Kidspot

Are Bilinguals Really Smarter? | Psychology Today

---

Could you provide any sources that suggest that the authors initiated this discourse?

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#74

Post by knzhou »

zzzcpan wrote: post #62
JamesBarney wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the best way to evaluate a study is to read the first few lines and guess at how offended the 8 researches are who wrote the paper. Also I would describe the following as skeptical more than offended. > Because of enduring experience of managing two languages, bilinguals have been argued to develop superior executive functioning compared with monolinguals. Despite extensive investigation, there is, howe…

> "bilinguals have been argued to develop superior executive functioning compared with monolinguals" This is the one I find very problematic. They made up an entire unscientific claim to disprove.

Isn't that literally the claim the article posted here is making?

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#75

Post by funklute »

zzzcpan wrote: post #70
funklute wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no consensus" in this case means that researchers have claimed different things in the past. If you can form a hypothesis which is falsifiable by a repeatable experiment, then it is by definition science. This paper is clearly science. You may still doubt the conclusions, but the aspects you are attacking seem kinda besides the point/plain wrong.

That's the thing, you can't make a falsifiable hypothesis here, because "bilingual advantage" is subjective, bordering on defining the purpose of life to become objective.

hummm.... I partly agree with you now. I don't agree that "bilingual advantage" is necessarily subjective per se.

But if you were to say "the conclusions are only valid insofar as the chosen metrics to measure are representative of an underlying bilingual advantage" - then I would totally agree.

I guess my view is that this latter question is very subtle, and something for a domain expert to gauge. I'm not in a position to gauge it, and this is the point where I do to some degree have to trust the peer-review process, as flawed as it may be!

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#77

Post by xenospn »

As a data point, I'm bilingual, and have been for about 30 years (my first language isn't English), and I'm kind of an idiot. So there's that.

In all seriousness though, this is something that's only debated in very large countries with a dominant culture and common language (US, Russia, UK, France, etc). Growing up in a smaller country that has its own language, pretty much everyone has to read/write and speak English at some level.

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#78

Post by mistahenry »

OldFatCactus wrote: post #64

What's the best way to learn a new language?

In my opinion, Assimil for learning the grammar and Pimsleur for speaking and listening comprehension. That’s how I learned German by myself enough in a year to get a job in Germany

More important than the method, though, is that you never miss a day of practice

Re: Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016)

#79

Post by leftyted »

dagav wrote: post #36

I've been learning a second language, one that is very different than English, and it has been a complete mind fuck. I can see why knowing two languages would have a positive effect on your brain: another language is an entire other way of thinking about the world. Language is an artifact of the culture that created it, and it crystallizes the values and beliefs of that culture. By learning the language, you can ente…

Having studied a few languages, I don't agree with the idea that "another language is an entire other way of thinking about the world". That's not how it felt to me.

There's a linguistic-philosophical debate over this topic: Linguistic Relativity (or Sapir-Whorf) vs Universal Grammar (generally attributed to Chomsky). Though both theories are plausible, I find the Universal Grammar theory more convincing. There are good arguments on both sides.

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