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Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

journals.sagepub.com

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Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#241

Post by DuckFeathers »

Being able to think in multiple languages frees the mind from thinking in language altogether. This is easy to deduce with reasoning and I can confirm it (to myself) from experience. What psychological "science" has to say about it makes me question their study than anything.

It is important to remember however that not all bilinguals are equal. The languages have to be different enough. English, German and Swedish (all Germanic languages with very similar grammer) doesn't give you much freedom in comparision to German and Mandarin.

Find people who are fluent (i.e. they can think in different languages) in two languages that are far apart in the language tree and run the study again.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#242

Post by oblio »

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…

Yeah. That's why the argument about number of speakers is total bunk,for example.

It's all about the economic weight of those speakers and the desirability of living in the countries where the language is widely used.

There's a reason English is so far ahead of Mandarin or Hindi.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#243

Post by rxyz »

cat_plus_plus wrote: post #224

How good is independent variable control in this study? The most common reason for bilingualism is things going very wrong in the birth country for either you or your parents. In which case, cognitive disadvantage is expected due to malnutrition, preventable childhood diseases, parents not being best adjusted to host country culture and education system and so on. On the other hand, voluntary bilingualism is a sign o…

This comment is so ignorant and America-centric that it made me angry. Wow

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#244

Post by oblio »

DuckFeathers wrote: post #241

Being able to think in multiple languages frees the mind from thinking in language altogether. This is easy to deduce with reasoning and I can confirm it (to myself) from experience. What psychological "science" has to say about it makes me question their study than anything. It is important to remember however that not all bilinguals are equal. The languages have to be different enough. English, German and Swedish (…

> Being able to think in multiple languages frees the mind from thinking in language altogether.

I don't understand this.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#245

Post by mejutoco »

polishdude20 wrote: post #144
RajT88 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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! This has been my experience as well. My native language is English, and I do just fine in it. But I've also studied a couple other languages, and when I try to put together sentences, whatever word is closest sometimes pops out. I almost never find myself accidentally…

I wonder if it's different if you've studied the language vs if you grew up with it. I learned polish from my parents when growing up and English from living in Canada and cartoons. My native tongue is English but I can speak polish fairly well and read and write it. I don't ever feel like I accidentally reach for polish or English words when I need the other.

If I understood correctly, the parent poster is saying that he mixes words between their second and third languages, not the native one.

I agree with your interpretation though. My anecdotal experience tells me this happens with studied languages.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#246

Post by isaacfrond »

mdp2021 wrote: post #215
routerl wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...you're going to come back with a much different understanding of Chinese culture and its people And of American culture and its people. You might re-evaluate some ideas you'd grown up with, becoming a more cosmopolitan/adaptable/understanding person, capable of having deeper relationships with a larger proportion of the Earth's population. But it probably won't make you better at tests of cognitive capacity.

> But it probably won't make you better at tests of cognitive capacity How do you test «cognitive capacity»? The other day on these pages a newcomer came and wrote he "distrusts them ". Some call ignorance relevant to "cognitive capacity". (Some call it "much more than just relevant".)

It's in the paper. You present a battery of tasks, and see how well you do. In this case, twelve cognitive tests were included:

Double Trouble

Spatial Planning

Odd One Out

Grammatical Reasoning

Feature Match

Polygons

Digit Span

Rotations

Token Search

Paired Associates

Spatial Span

Monkey Ladder

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#247

Post by oblio »

brabel wrote: post #234
udev wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

> In Romanian you can be incredibly sophisticated (via modern French influence), but also stay close to the agricultural and pastoral roots. What makes you think French has a less "agricultural" root than Romanian. Both languages have existed since a time when industrialization was still far in the future... are you suggesting French somehow evolved from a more academic foundation?? This sounds kind of ridiculous to…

> are you suggesting French somehow evolved from a more academic foundation?? This sounds kind of ridiculous to me.

Look up what the French Academy is doing :-)

Also Romania used to have 50% subsistence farmers until 2000.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#248

Post by michaelt »

mdp2021 wrote: post #215
routerl wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...you're going to come back with a much different understanding of Chinese culture and its people And of American culture and its people. You might re-evaluate some ideas you'd grown up with, becoming a more cosmopolitan/adaptable/understanding person, capable of having deeper relationships with a larger proportion of the Earth's population. But it probably won't make you better at tests of cognitive capacity.

> But it probably won't make you better at tests of cognitive capacity How do you test «cognitive capacity»? The other day on these pages a newcomer came and wrote he "distrusts them ". Some call ignorance relevant to "cognitive capacity". (Some call it "much more than just relevant".)

Presumably they mean 'g factor' [1]

Although somewhat ironically, the person who proposed 'g factor' was specifically reporting correlations between student performance in latin, french, english, maths and music.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#249

Post by AnnaPali »

jb1991 wrote: post #147
AnnaPali wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assimil Dutch is an amazing course! It brings you to B2 in about 45 hours of applied study (just doing as the instructions tell you!) I really like Assimil courses in general but the polyglot community widely believes that the Dutch course is their best of all. Good luck!

Unfortunately it seems to be out of print, not available anywhere. Maybe the company is going out of business?

Here it is for $30: https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Assimil-Staff/dp/2700517555

You can also find it online, but be sure to find the audio files also. They are essential. Each of the 100+ lessons are like this: After rereading the lesson text with the notes until you can read it without assistance - you then listen to the audio until you can understand the audio without reading the text, then you say it out loud until you can say it at the same speed as the audio without difficulty. So half of the course length involves the audio.

Re: Bilingualism affords no general cognitive advantages: Study

#250

Post by mejutoco »

Kamq wrote: post #101
RajT88 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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! This has been my experience as well. My native language is English, and I do just fine in it. But I've also studied a couple other languages, and when I try to put together sentences, whatever word is closest sometimes pops out. I almost never find myself accidentally…

> 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 sympathize with your point, but it depends.

Entschuldigung, what time is it? Is that valid English?

Auteur, oeuvre, etc. are now English terms, but Remmidemmi?

My take is it is a gradient, and at some point you would be speaking broken English. Far from, mix words and it will be _perfectly_ valid English.

I believe your assertion is more of a rhetorical tool to make a point, and I agree with that point, though.

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