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Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

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Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#51

Post by qsort »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #36
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #5

That seems to reflect my lived experience. Do bilingual people in general seem to be more intelligent? I don't think so. But, like many other things in life, the access of even a second language in my opinion gives you another tool to use as intellectual leverage to gain greater or richer understanding to many specific domains that you would otherwise require someone else to digest the information for you. That doesn…

> But, like many other things in life, the access of even a second language in my opinion gives you another tool to use as intellectual leverage to gain greater or richer understanding to many specific domains that you would otherwise require someone else to digest the information for you. What are some of those domains, do you think?

- You can not be an effective software developer if you don't speak English (it's a second language to many of us).

- If you are interested in literature, history, philosophy or adjacent fields, reading sources in their original language is an advantage. Philosophers are more likely to be fluent in German, for instance.

- Reading news in foreign languages is often illuminating.

- Most translations are just extremely horrible. I can only understand a tiny amount of languages, but I'd rather put in the effort to read in a foreign language than suffer through bad translations.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#52

Post by courgette »

tstrimple wrote: post #27
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #5

That seems to reflect my lived experience. Do bilingual people in general seem to be more intelligent? I don't think so. But, like many other things in life, the access of even a second language in my opinion gives you another tool to use as intellectual leverage to gain greater or richer understanding to many specific domains that you would otherwise require someone else to digest the information for you. That doesn…

I have to imagine there are parallel benefits as well. Just as a Java developer will become a better Java developer by learning programming languages with other paradigms, I have to believe knowing multiple spoken languages has tangible benefits outside of understanding the language itself.

French being my first language, I can says the same things with fancier words in english.

But sometime I will use English turn of sentences in French and it sounds weird ( just did it a l’envers here, pretty sure “turn of sentence” does not exists in English )

I’m ok at Spanish too. My main motivation is to be able to talk to random peoples when traveling. English came de facto because of the internet and US soft power.

Not sure it makes me better at writing or speaking.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#53

Post by booleandilemma »

I'm not too surprised. The advantage of learning another language is a social one. You increase the number of people you can speak with, thereby increasing your opportunities in life. Compare someone living in the US who can speak English versus someone who can't.

I hope they tackle "left-handed people are better at math" at some point. That's another one I'm tired of hearing about.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#54

Post by dron57 »

crispyambulance wrote: post #30

This is just an anecdotal data point but my mother was bilingual and near the end of her life had a stroke. It impacted her language-- but mostly for English, not nearly as much her native language. She could understand both English and Italian, but would almost entirely speak Italian, not even realizing which language she was speaking. Is that a "cognitive advantage"? Maybe? I am not qualified to answer that. But to…

I'm not a neuroscientist, but as I understand it losing a particular ability is usually a sign of brain damage. It is likely that she learned English as an adult (or older than a toddler at least) and it was being stored in a more specific and more constrained area of the brain.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#55

Post by tnel77 »

My theory: in the United States, speaking multiple languages can be a sign of coming from a more financially sound household. I wouldn’t expect a second language to be any better for the brain than studying math or learning to play an instrument. As always, the most important factor is money.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#56

Post by lisasays »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #23

A result that can only be surprising in places where monolingualism is the norm, like the US, and knowledge of other languages (outside of those acquired from one’s family) is taken as a sign of erudition. If you’ve ever spent time in countries like Switzerland, you’d know their are plenty of people who speak 2 or more languages but are otherwise of average intelligence.

Switzerland is a bad example, because it's socially and multilingual.

Whereas if one looks at basically monolingual societies (e.g. most of the countries in Europe) one find that not only is not everyone bilingual (and no, "everyone" does not speak English) -- multilingualism definitely correlates with class and education.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#57

Post by klodolph »

courgette wrote: post #52
tstrimple wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to imagine there are parallel benefits as well. Just as a Java developer will become a better Java developer by learning programming languages with other paradigms, I have to believe knowing multiple spoken languages has tangible benefits outside of understanding the language itself.

French being my first language, I can says the same things with fancier words in english. But sometime I will use English turn of sentences in French and it sounds weird ( just did it a l’envers here, pretty sure “turn of sentence” does not exists in English ) I’m ok at Spanish too. My main motivation is to be able to talk to random peoples when traveling. English came de facto because of the internet and US soft pow…

“Turn of phrase” is an English idiom, but it sounds like it does not mean the same thing.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#58

Post by rib3ye »

courgette wrote: post #52
tstrimple wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to imagine there are parallel benefits as well. Just as a Java developer will become a better Java developer by learning programming languages with other paradigms, I have to believe knowing multiple spoken languages has tangible benefits outside of understanding the language itself.

French being my first language, I can says the same things with fancier words in english. But sometime I will use English turn of sentences in French and it sounds weird ( just did it a l’envers here, pretty sure “turn of sentence” does not exists in English ) I’m ok at Spanish too. My main motivation is to be able to talk to random peoples when traveling. English came de facto because of the internet and US soft pow…

You don’t think English propagation had anything to do with British colonialism?

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#59

Post by pb7 »

AdrenalinMd wrote: post #50

As someone fluent in four languages*, I agree. I would even argue that the opposite of an advantage is true. Consider this: it adds unnecessary cognitive load. When trying to think of a word, it comes to you in four different languages, which isn't helpful! I speak four languages out of necessity, not by choice. When you can focus on fewer languages, your proficiency in them improves. Although I can speak four langua…

I am also originally from Moldova and speak the same 4 languages. If I had to guess, this is fairly common in Moldova -- at least in private schools.

I would say there is a very mild advantage, even recognizing vaguely similar words in other languages when traveling. I find Russian to be very useful in a way that French and Romanian aren't.

English, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish are the most "useful" as they each unlock a large part of the world that tends to prefer its own.

Edit: Spanish is probably on par with the others.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#60

Post by makeitdouble »

There is a meta analysis coming to close conclusion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8641133/

The interesting part being it's done on children still in their learning phase. The current article targeting 11000 makes me think it's done in a similar setting (catching 11000 adult working people for a study is just complicated).

In general when people are arguing about side effects of bilingualism, I think they care more about adults who more or less reached their full potential.

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