Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

journals.sagepub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 435 posts

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#341

Post by hungryforcodes »

Levitz wrote: post #238
decaffjoe wrote: post #201

This topic misses the forest for the trees. Even if there is a cognitive difference in people who speak multiple languages, the magnitude of the advantage/disadvantage pales in comparison to the far more impactful difference in the understanding of the world that proficiency in another language gives you. If you're a monolingual American born English speaker and you learn Chinese and go live in China for a year, you'…

It's still an important piece of information, first because it disagrees with what we previously thought, second because there are fringe cases in which learning a language doesn't open you to anything else. I'm Spanish and live in the Basque Country. Everybody speaks Spanish here, but we are supposed to also speak Basque. The idea that it's advantageous to learning and such is one of the main arguments used to justi…

Have started with English then learned Spanish (travelling through Latin America extensively), and now an Asian language, I have acquired all sorts of advantages and also new ways of thinking.

I really feel people on HN ARE sometimes missing the forest for the trees and I can't imagine how learning a new language could not be a good thing.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#342

Post by varjag »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #316
AdamN wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not totally true - in Berlin there are lots of English speakers (many/most English as a second language) and so people including myself live here with pretty basic German (A2 probably). Those people are certainly learning alot about a different culture from wherever they came from even if they aren't speaking the dominant language. Obviously if I had B2 German it would be awesome and I would chat up more peopl…

yes, not every specific example translates perfectly to every other scenario under the same class. However, I'm in Denmark. And I've lived in Germany. And I have an Italian wife and family. In my experience in Denmark basically everybody without a language learning disability or extremely advanced age speaks English to a far higher degree of competence than the average German in Berlin, in fact Danes almost speak Eng…

Right on money. It's easier to delude yourself that you comprehended an European culture without knowing the language simply because everything is so superficially familiar and all nuances are comparatively fine.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#343

Post by denton-scratch »

nohaydeprobleme wrote: post #340
denton-scratch wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not worth the pain "Peine" isn't just pain; it's also trouble. So I think "It's not worth the trouble" is a better rendition. /me a native English speaker, who learned French by immersion aged about 6.

That difference between the literal word-by-word translation [1] and the semantic translation is my point of focus. In English, my suggested translation would be that “It isn’t worth it.” But since this word-for-word translation would feel unnatural (that is, it’s typically better to introduce « la peine » even if the word trouble/pain wasn’t in the original sentence), there can be an extra cognitive load that interr…

> Quand les poules ont les dents

See "As rare as hens' teeth". Similar to "as rare as rocking-horse shit".

My French is far from idiomatic; I hadn't come across "quand les poules ont les dents".

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#344

Post by nohaydeprobleme »

rjzzleep wrote: post #136
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 find this discussion absurd. Here's a paper that most people have not read and then add their own subjective anecdote to it to confirm their personal opinion. Has anyone bothered to look at the tests that determine cognitive ability in this context? Here's one(or it's advanced version the double trouble test): “assess the ability to inhibit cognitive interference that occurs when processing of a specific stimulus f…

As a reader of the research paper, another limitation of the study is that the study did not appear to differentiate between people who learned a second language as an adult, versus people who grew up bilingual.

~~

To add context on how participants self-reported their bilingualism, the authors wrote: "To obtain information about the number of languages spoken, which languages were spoken, and demographic variables (such as age, country of origin, SES, and education), we asked participants to complete a detailed questionnaire. The questions used in the present study are available in Appendix S1 in the Supplemental Material available online."

From the downloaded supplementary material, the only questions asked related to language assessment were:

"5. What language(s) do you primarily speak at home?

"6. How many languages do you speak? Select one: 1-20"

I could not find any other questions related to language assessment.

~~

From the questionnaire, it looks like the researchers did not examine whether studying a second language as an adult to a very high level could confer cognitive advantages. The study possibly treated people who grew up bilingual and didn't acquire a second language as an adult, and also people who self-reported as bilingual but did not reach a high level in the language, into the same group.

The conclusions of the study would be stronger if the researchers examined how the cognitive abilities of monolingual people who undergo training in a second language and practice it to an advanced level, could change their cognitive abilities over time.

In fact, it remains plausible that adult language acquisition could still provide cognitive benefits. Another research paper with conflicting conclusions [1] studied the effect of language acquisition on older adults aged 59–79 years old. The authors of this different study concluded that "learning a foreign-language may represent a potentially helpful cognitive intervention for promoting healthy aging."

[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2019.0042...

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#345

Post by bityard »

Aaronmacaron wrote: post #317
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This topic misses the forest for the trees. Even if there is a cognitive difference in people who speak multiple languages, the magnitude of the advantage/disadvantage pales in comparison to the far more impactful difference in the understanding of the world that proficiency in another language gives you. But that's not what the paper studied. It's long been stated in popular culture that learning a language increa…

> It's the moving to China for a year that would increase your understanding of Chinese culture and people far more than learning Chinese by itself. Not really. Language and culture are inseparable. In my opinion, you cannot learn a language without learning at least a bit of the culture too. Idioms, expressions, and the way people use language say a lot about their culture. Apart from my own culture, I have by far t…

> HN is a good example. I see what (mostly) American people think,

I like HN as much as the next critter but HN is an extremely small and biased sample of the US. The demographic is skewed towards young and liberal (even socialist at times) when the actual country is more like 50/50 liberal/conservative, to oversimplify a bit. On HN, you are also seeing comments from people who have both strong opinions and the free time to write about about them online. Most people in the US are not going to shower others with their criticisms of society until after at least a few drinks.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#346

Post by mannykannot »

kriro wrote: post #309
The_Colonel wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's long been stated in popular culture that learning a language increases cognitive ability: improves memory, reasoning, and helps reduce onset of senility etc. This study suggests it isn't. The study is about "bilingualism", not about "learning". Bilingualism is a passive property, e.g. children born to parents speaking different languages will acquire those languages, but in adulthood no longer be in the proces…

My main "issue" with the paper (which I really like just to be clear) is that I can't completely figure out how they grouped someone as bilingual (maybe that's on me but it doesn't seem very clear in the methods section). It seems they used self identification by the participants (18+ old). If that's the case someone that learned the language in school would be considered bilingual. For example, if the questionaire a…

One could always ask additional and more specific questions, such as whether the subject learned more than one language as an infant. On the other hand, it is not clear to me from the abstract alone whether the authors were concerned with when their subjects learned their languages, though it may be clear enough to the intended audience.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#347

Post by SamBam »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #235
emodendroket wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be so, but if bilingualism is talking to your parents in kitchen Spanish without actually traveling anywhere, rather than learning the language of a culture that's alien to you so that you can spend an extended period of time there, is that just as enriching? Does an anglophone Canadian who learns French really expand their worldview that much? I'm not saying the answers to these questions are obvious "nos"…

I think it may debunk the myth about ability to fix all false friends that some americans seemingly believe in.

Unsure what myth your referring to. The only thing I know about "false friends" in the context of learning languages are "false friend" words that sound similar but don't have similar meanings, like "embarrassed" in English and "embarazada" in Spanish (which means pregnant).

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#348

Post by achenet »

emodendroket wrote: post #236
andrekandre wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not only that but also the increased opportunities for new knowledge and experiences as well... it can open a lot of doors that would ordinarily be shut-off.

Having achieved a foreign language college major with minors in two others I find it hard not to be cynical about this unless the doors you’re talking about are things like vacations, entertainment, and similar amusements. From a work perspective it has not done much for me. Of course that could be different if my native language weren’t English or I didn’t work in the US, but then that’s just about the relative econ…

for me the rewards to learning (basic) German have been more personal than professional - attempting to speak with a German speaker in their native language generally makes it easier to bond with them.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#349

Post by e12e »

tgv wrote: post #325
e12e wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, I'm in the Netherlands and need to learn another language, but this one is proving slow to learn. I've heard people that speak many languages fluently claim that it gets easier after the fifth language - so keep at it. One tip; try as much as possible to stick to switching only between your mother tongue and the new(est) language you're learning - or at least have as many full days as you can where you avoid s…

Except Dutch doesn't resemble the other languages. The fact that my proudly unpatriotic countrymen (who secretly still believe that The Netherlands is the best place in the world) will start speaking in (broken) English as soon as they pick up a trace of a foreign accent, doesn't help either.

> Except Dutch doesn't resemble the other languages.

I didn't mean five or more "European dialects" I meant five or more different languages. Besides, between French and English there should be some overlap with Dutch - though I agree Dutch seems wierd on the surface:)

Sticking to your broken new language in the face of "helpful English" is hard - at least with friends and co-workers you can make an agreement (all Dutch Fridays, etc).

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#350

Post by watwut »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #333
watwut wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not how it works? People who know a lot are not in general slower then people who know only a little.

Have you tested that or are you conjecturing from intuition?

Did you tested it and found people who know a lot to be slower in answering questions then those who know only a little?

Depending on how you define tested, yep, people who I know that know a lot are not slower answering questions that know only very little.

Post reply on HN