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Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

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Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#151

Post by wudangmonk »

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 really can't relate to most of your points. Words either come naturally as they do for everyone else or you don't use the word in that language therefore you will try to guess it or think of a similar one. This just means that you are not exposed to the same vocabulary in both languages. All my Comp Sci and Math vocabulary is in English because of school/online/talking to others. All my botany and plant knowledge knowledge is in Spanish because its my mother's hobby and that's how I know it. Only if I switch the languages will I struggle with the vocabulary.

The only time when I felt having to use more mental capacity was when I wasn't fluent in the language, the idea of languages being a constant cognitive load is as ridiculous as thinking that you are better off not knowing anything at all due to the toll knowledge takes on your mental capacity.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#152

Post by tharkun__ »

florakel wrote: post #141
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…

Í speak 4 languages and I love it: Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, German and English. I have lived or worked in countries where those languages are spoken. Each language feels like a unique perspective on life and unlocks the understanding of a new culture for you. When talking to a taxi driver or reading a local newspaper you will be confronted with words or phrases that have no literal translation into your mother…

You seem to speak 4 languages so well that at least in one of them you can't count to 5 ;)

Please take this tongue in cheek, as in kind of like the other comment said: for lots of folks splitting that atte tion is detrimental at least in some regard.

Personally I think some diversification in language is good. It "keeps you on your toes". If you never use a muscle it will deteriorate. But you won't be able to exercise all of your muscles equally all the time.

That said I do get your point about viewpoints. It's so easy to just have exactly one if all you speak is one language. Plenty of places in the world today where that is the case. And it's not just the ones we see in the international news all the time.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#154

Post by udev »

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 also speak the same four languages plus one more.

I do consider there are advantages to speaking several languages.

I learned from English that you can be very precise, but also economical in exposition of complex matter.

I learned from Russian how incredibly powerful and nuanced a language can be (too bad it is currently used to scare people everywhere). I always say that "you can translate anything into Russian" and, if you have the skill, it will carry over the original style, atmosphere, and colour. Not sure how to explain this, but e.g., you can almost get a feel for the New-York accent reading a good translation into Russian. I heard from several people that Arabic has a similar power of expression.

I learned from French that there are way more words for expressing feelings than I was using before, and also a certain way of having no-pressure intellectual, exploratory conversations, exchanging ideas among peers. It has a certain rhythm and many turns of phrases that work very well for this.

In Romanian you can be incredibly sophisticated (via modern French influence), but also stay close to the agricultural and pastoral roots. The language just has this great dynamic range. Romanian literature has examples of great works that are essentially collaborative, and have hundreds maybe thousands of authors (some likely illiterate), and that were passed along in oral form with various modifications that were finally recorded and published less than two centuries ago, and are very much readable by modern speakers.

===

Bonus: More things that I learned from English are certain expressions that guide you into a (I think) pragmatic world view, e.g.:

  - thinking clearly about hidden assumptions, e.g. "don't make assumptions", is easy in English, but is convoluted and indirect in the rest of languages I speak.

  - what I call "scoped" phrases, e.g. "just because IDEA1 does not mean IDEA2", or "IDEA1, though IDEA2", where English language helps you to avoid exaggerating or generalizing too much, by making it easy to "scope" your statements, but also helps you to be explicit about the boundaries within which your statement is true: "Just because I refused your first request, does not mean I don't want you to try again."

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#155

Post by albert_e »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #67
tnel77 wrote: post #55

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.

Speaking more than 2 languages might be such a sign. But where I live (in San Francisco) speaking exactly 2 languages is usually a sign that you or your parents are immigrants.

Outside the US ... the variables change a bit.

India for instance -- A typical kid in many places here (especially southern part of the country) has 3 languages formally taught in school and consumed as popular media daily.

Having privilege in these regions usually translates to levels of literacy like having reading ability (in addition to just speaking for trade), reading literature, speaking fluency, broader vocabulary, "better" accent, etc. -- all of which, in thousand different ways, signal one's socio-economic status in every interaction.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#156

Post by TMWNN »

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…

>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've heard that there is an unusually high rate of mental illness among European Parliament translators.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#157

Post by jcranmer »

nunuvit wrote: post #133
Kamq wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I almost never find myself accidentally sticking English words into sentences, but I will frequently mix words from my second and third languages. Which is perfectly valid english.

I don't understand this comment.

English has a reputation of excessively borrowing words from foreign languages. I don't think English is actually any more prone to doing this any other languages, but English does have a stronger habit of insisting on using foreign spellings and pronunciations for words.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#158

Post by wolverine876 »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
ofalkaed wrote: post #2

It absolutely adds advantage to those interested in literature, it allows you to see your first language outside itself and generally increases your understanding of your first language. I would consider that a cognitive advantage but it is not exactly an advantage for the general public. Interestingly (at least to me) I have found programming languages* even more beneficial in this sense which I also find ironic, st…

And it also helps wonders in acquiring a third language, which can be very useful in its own right. When all you know is the language you were raised with adding another is hard work, once you have that second one the next one is so much easier. But I readily believe that knowing another language isn't suddenly going to make you better at math or physics or geography. It wouldn't make much sense, if anything I would…

> isn't suddenly going to make you better at math or physics or geography

There are other forms of intelligence. Plus, I'm not so sure you are right about those. Finally, it might be useful to read what people have written in other languages about those topics.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#159

Post by wsc981 »

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 believe there was indeed some research done in the past in which multi-lingual people would generally recover better from strokes compared to people knowing only a single language.

Perhaps additional "connections" are made in the brain that can be used when other "connections" are broken due to stroke.

Anecdotic-ally, my father also recovered quite well from his stroke and he knew Dutch, English and likely a bit of latin languages as well (had Italian and Chinese penfriends when he was young, often used Latin proverbs, ...).

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#160

Post by MrGando »

fnord77 wrote: post #108
eru wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it like it's a bad thing. This is an awesome way to provide both an extra language when kids don't have much else to do and fit it easy to pick them up, _and_ it saves on costs? What could be better?

> an extra language I learned spanish at a young age and I find it pretty useless. The last time I used it in the past 20 years was watching Casa De Papiel Really wished I learned something like German or Chinese instead

nit: It's "Casa de Papel", just made me curious about how deep your Spanish goes.
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