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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)

#91

Post by codr7 »

I thought we pretty much agreed that's how it works for programming languages, and from my experience it applies to natural language as well.

My native language is Swedish. I've studied English since I was 8 (and I'm 42 now), German for 3 years in school and lived there for 4, two years of Italian and two years of Chinese. It seems the more languages I learn, the more interesting and worthwhile it gets to compare similarities/differences and the easier it is to learn new ones.

Learning a completely different language, such as Chinese coming from English, has similar benefits to learning Lisp coming from Java. It stretches the brain in exotic ways.

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

#93

Post by theonemind »

OldFatCactus wrote: post #64

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

Keeping up motivation seems most important to me. After thinking about it for a while, it seems nearly impossible to learn a second language unless you have some interest in the culture behind it.

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

#94

Post by CrazyStat »

casefields wrote: post #69
zzzcpan wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

Yup. That’s setting up the parameters in an obvious way to strawman an opponents argument.

It can't be a strawman when it's an argument that the opponents have actually made. Examples are easy to find:

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-06955-009 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28895004/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22464592/

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

#95

Post by dagav »

edanm wrote: post #82
dagav wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hebrew.

Out of curiosity, why Hebrew? (I'm a Hebrew speaker) > 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 enter into an entire other world. A common take, although I don't know if I would take it too far. Hebrew specifically has the advantage of having been re-created from nothing only a relatively short time ago (150 y…

I'm Jewish and my father is Israeli, so I was learning to connect with them and my heritage. I'm no expert on Hebrew but one thing I noticed is it's connection to the Bible:

Adam means "Man" or "Mankind" in Hebrew.

"Earth" is Adama.

"Human Being" is Ben Adam, literally "Son of Adam", or "Son of Man".

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

#96

Post by Baeocystin »

mistahenry wrote: post #84

In my experience, learning a second language has clogged my brain up a bit. Maybe it’s healthier and more engaged, but it’s sometimes hard to say if it’s truly been beneficial from a cognitive perspective. I’ve certainly been humbled and become more confident in pushing through mistakes made in public. It’s also a really cool skill. But it often feels like my memory for words is like a unordered linked list. Sometime…

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I consider myself multisemilingal- English is my primary language, but I have up-goer 5 levels of proficiency in half a dozen other languages. I enjoy it, but I do not feel like it has been a net improvement in terms of cognitive function. If anything, more mental housekeeping is required when I sit down to write in any language, including English.

I think many people, even multilingual ones, fail to truly consider what they mean by 'multilingual'. Words and grammar are only the bare surface of what you need to learn- what actually happens is that you grow a different model of mindset and culture, one where the words of the new language have meaning. This only happens over a lifetime of immersion and exposure to the prosaic realities of the language in question.

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

#97

Post by rukuu001 »

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…

> another language is an entire other way of thinking about the world

This has been exactly my experience (with Korean first, then Spanish)

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

#99

Post by dagav »

leftyted wrote: post #79
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 g…

Maybe "an entire other way of thinking about the world" is a bit dramatic but it certainly captures the values and beliefs of the culture.

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

#100

Post by dagav »

dagav wrote: post #95
edanm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why Hebrew? (I'm a Hebrew speaker) > 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 enter into an entire other world. A common take, although I don't know if I would take it too far. Hebrew specifically has the advantage of having been re-created from nothing only a relatively short time ago (150 y…

I'm Jewish and my father is Israeli, so I was learning to connect with them and my heritage. I'm no expert on Hebrew but one thing I noticed is it's connection to the Bible: Adam means "Man" or "Mankind" in Hebrew. "Earth" is Adama. "Human Being" is Ben Adam, literally "Son of Adam", or "Son of Man".

I wrote this in a rush so here is my clarified point:

"Adama" means "Land", "Earth", or "Ground".

"Adam" means "Man" or "Mankind". Adam was created by God from the ground, and "Adam" is derived from "Adama".

"Ben Adam" means "Human Being", literally "Son of Adam" or "Son of Man".

So when you say "Human Being" in Hebrew, you are directly referencing the creation of Man by God in Genesis.

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