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Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

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Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#41

Post by a-l-c-o »

grondilu wrote: post #11

Not quite related, but I'm wondering what it means to be bilingual. I mean, does the use of English on internet count? For instance, I'm French and I spend most of my time on the "english" internet, including YouTube, reddit, HN, IRC... I'd say 95% of my activity on the web is in English. I also watch american TV series and movies without subtitles. I understand english quite well and yet, I haven't spoken English fo…

I'm in your exact situation.

And as a consequence (or cause) I am now seeing French as inadequate. It's such a verbose and slow language.

I don't deny its rare beauty when used ideally (think poetry, good writers, Francoise Hardy singing).

But in practice, what twisted collective mind could come up and stay with "Qu'est ce que c'est ?" (What is it ?) ? That monster literally translate to "What is this that it is ?".

In a fast and unifying world I am positive French is doomed.

When arguing this with people I always get rebutted with the likes of "French is very rich.. It is just different..but none the less valuable.." I don't think so. English is an efficient superset of french. You can express as much or more subtlety, feelings or facts in English. Take only the vocabulary : It's just larger in English ! (And in fact contains a good chunk of the French).

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#42

Post by jordigh »

a-l-c-o wrote: post #41
grondilu wrote: post #11

Not quite related, but I'm wondering what it means to be bilingual. I mean, does the use of English on internet count? For instance, I'm French and I spend most of my time on the "english" internet, including YouTube, reddit, HN, IRC... I'd say 95% of my activity on the web is in English. I also watch american TV series and movies without subtitles. I understand english quite well and yet, I haven't spoken English fo…

I'm in your exact situation. And as a consequence (or cause) I am now seeing French as inadequate. It's such a verbose and slow language. I don't deny its rare beauty when used ideally (think poetry, good writers, Francoise Hardy singing). But in practice, what twisted collective mind could come up and stay with "Qu'est ce que c'est ?" (What is it ?) ? That monster literally translate to "What is this that it is ?".…

> But in practice, what twisted collective mind could come up and stay with "Qu'est ce que c'est ?" (What is it ?) ? That monster literally translate to "What is this that it is ?".

But it's only three syllables, like "what is it?" It's also kind of atomic. My French isn't native, but I don't think you can say "qui est ce qui ça est?", if you want to ask "who is it?", i.e. the initial two syllables "qu'est ce que" seem indivisible.

Comparisons about one language being more verbose/complex/harder than another never seem to really hold up under scrutiny. Usually when comparing two languages, one exhibits simplicity in one area where the other exhibits simplicity in another and it all roughly balances out. Humans seem to demand approximately a constant level of complexity from their languages. English for example has pretty complicated consonant clusters (e.g. hurdle, or angsts) to make up for fewer syllables. I'm not even sure English tends to have fewer syllables than French, as their common Celtic roots seem to prefer fewer syllables.

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#43

Post by nathanasmith »

jfaucett wrote: post #37
nathanasmith wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a native English speaker, born and raised in the US, it is a lament of mine that I can't justify the enormous time and effort needed to become bilingual. I guess I could learn Spanish, but why? It would be primarily recreational. And the time spent could almost certainly be more productively used picking up some other useful skill. Maybe I should just do it anyway in light of the more abstract benefits that the ar…

"I guess I could learn Spanish, but why?" Where are you from in the US? Im from the Atlanta area and bilingual spanish/english. Most people I know from georgia, florida, even alabama can at least understand spanish just from being around it so much. I really think to not know spanish you would have to actively try to avoid it - especially if you are young and from the city. In atlanta you can easily live without know…

I'm in Florida now but I did live in Atlanta for a few years and, if pushed, yo puedo hablar espanol suficiente para un conversacion simple. La problema es que no tengo oportunidad para bastante practica para fluente. So, I'm kind of in this half and half limbo where I can understand and speak enough Spanish but not enough that any native Spanish speaker would actually want to have a conversation with me. And for the other person who brought up the buying and selling to Spanish speakers aspect, the vast vast majority of Spanish speakers I've ever came in contact with speak a hell of a lot better English than I speak Spanish so that doesn't really make sense in practice either.

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#44

Post by ranit »

grondilu wrote: post #11

Not quite related, but I'm wondering what it means to be bilingual. I mean, does the use of English on internet count? For instance, I'm French and I spend most of my time on the "english" internet, including YouTube, reddit, HN, IRC... I'd say 95% of my activity on the web is in English. I also watch american TV series and movies without subtitles. I understand english quite well and yet, I haven't spoken English fo…

From the article:

>> ... bilinguals - defined in the study as those who spoke two or more languages

So, perhaps not speaking, or not be able to speak second language does exclude you.

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#45

Post by shas3 »

grondilu wrote: post #11

Not quite related, but I'm wondering what it means to be bilingual. I mean, does the use of English on internet count? For instance, I'm French and I spend most of my time on the "english" internet, including YouTube, reddit, HN, IRC... I'd say 95% of my activity on the web is in English. I also watch american TV series and movies without subtitles. I understand english quite well and yet, I haven't spoken English fo…

Further, do programming languages and math (each with their own definitions, notations, and axioms) count as language? I guess that would depend on how the brain processes these vs. spoken/written language.

How about dialects and very closely related languages? Surely, say, Tamil (or Mandarin) and English are quite different or orthogonal even, while Tamil (or Mandarin) and Kannada (or Cantonese) have similarities having diverged more recently (~2000 years for Tamil and Kannada/~1000 years for Chinese).

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#46

Post by jarboot »

nathanasmith wrote: post #43
jfaucett wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I guess I could learn Spanish, but why?" Where are you from in the US? Im from the Atlanta area and bilingual spanish/english. Most people I know from georgia, florida, even alabama can at least understand spanish just from being around it so much. I really think to not know spanish you would have to actively try to avoid it - especially if you are young and from the city. In atlanta you can easily live without know…

I'm in Florida now but I did live in Atlanta for a few years and, if pushed, yo puedo hablar espanol suficiente para un conversacion simple. La problema es que no tengo oportunidad para bastante practica para fluente. So, I'm kind of in this half and half limbo where I can understand and speak enough Spanish but not enough that any native Spanish speaker would actually want to have a conversation with me. And for the…

>the vast vast majority of Spanish speakers I've ever came in contact with speak a hell of a lot better English than I speak Spanish so that doesn't really make sense in practice either.

Don't forget that part of the reason that English is well known across the globe is because the US is a media powerhouse. The web is practically english, US blockbusters are seen worldwide, and it's essentially the language of international business.

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#47

Post by [deleted] »

a-l-c-o wrote: post #41
grondilu wrote: post #11

Not quite related, but I'm wondering what it means to be bilingual. I mean, does the use of English on internet count? For instance, I'm French and I spend most of my time on the "english" internet, including YouTube, reddit, HN, IRC... I'd say 95% of my activity on the web is in English. I also watch american TV series and movies without subtitles. I understand english quite well and yet, I haven't spoken English fo…

I'm in your exact situation. And as a consequence (or cause) I am now seeing French as inadequate. It's such a verbose and slow language. I don't deny its rare beauty when used ideally (think poetry, good writers, Francoise Hardy singing). But in practice, what twisted collective mind could come up and stay with "Qu'est ce que c'est ?" (What is it ?) ? That monster literally translate to "What is this that it is ?".…

[deleted]

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#48

Post by johnchristopher »

a-l-c-o wrote: post #41
grondilu wrote: post #11

Not quite related, but I'm wondering what it means to be bilingual. I mean, does the use of English on internet count? For instance, I'm French and I spend most of my time on the "english" internet, including YouTube, reddit, HN, IRC... I'd say 95% of my activity on the web is in English. I also watch american TV series and movies without subtitles. I understand english quite well and yet, I haven't spoken English fo…

I'm in your exact situation. And as a consequence (or cause) I am now seeing French as inadequate. It's such a verbose and slow language. I don't deny its rare beauty when used ideally (think poetry, good writers, Francoise Hardy singing). But in practice, what twisted collective mind could come up and stay with "Qu'est ce que c'est ?" (What is it ?) ? That monster literally translate to "What is this that it is ?".…

> But in practice, what twisted collective mind could come up and stay with "Qu'est ce que c'est ?" (What is it ?) ? That monster literally translate to "What is this that it is ?".

The same one who came up with "Au jour d'aujourd'hui". And "sociétal" in place of "social". The usage of any given language is bound to evolve over time into such... monsters.

Sarcasm apart, french is indeed a difficult language to learn (as a native and as foreigner) according to my PhD linguist friend but the movie english, the book english and the internet english is a poor subset of english. It's a simple english like the basic english everyone speak around the world.

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#49

Post by grondilu »

a-l-c-o wrote: post #41
grondilu wrote: post #11

Not quite related, but I'm wondering what it means to be bilingual. I mean, does the use of English on internet count? For instance, I'm French and I spend most of my time on the "english" internet, including YouTube, reddit, HN, IRC... I'd say 95% of my activity on the web is in English. I also watch american TV series and movies without subtitles. I understand english quite well and yet, I haven't spoken English fo…

I'm in your exact situation. And as a consequence (or cause) I am now seeing French as inadequate. It's such a verbose and slow language. I don't deny its rare beauty when used ideally (think poetry, good writers, Francoise Hardy singing). But in practice, what twisted collective mind could come up and stay with "Qu'est ce que c'est ?" (What is it ?) ? That monster literally translate to "What is this that it is ?".…

> "Qu'est ce que c'est ?"

To be fair in French you rarely say that. You'd say "c'est quoi ça?". I know, it's not the same register but it just shows that people naturally shape their language to its most efficient form.

Re: Bilingual people are twice as likely to recover from a stroke, study finds

#50

Post by vmarsy »

a-l-c-o wrote: post #41
grondilu wrote: post #11

Not quite related, but I'm wondering what it means to be bilingual. I mean, does the use of English on internet count? For instance, I'm French and I spend most of my time on the "english" internet, including YouTube, reddit, HN, IRC... I'd say 95% of my activity on the web is in English. I also watch american TV series and movies without subtitles. I understand english quite well and yet, I haven't spoken English fo…

I'm in your exact situation. And as a consequence (or cause) I am now seeing French as inadequate. It's such a verbose and slow language. I don't deny its rare beauty when used ideally (think poetry, good writers, Francoise Hardy singing). But in practice, what twisted collective mind could come up and stay with "Qu'est ce que c'est ?" (What is it ?) ? That monster literally translate to "What is this that it is ?".…

English seems more appropriate than French in some domains, but when it comes to social communication, I prefer French.

The lack of masculine/feminine, and the "you" that either represent one or multiple persons[1] makes communication, especially texting, more ambiguous than in French.

When you want to avoid all ambiguity your message will be longer than the French one, and you will also probably look awkward.

[1]Some regional languages have a fix for this such as "y'all" but not everywhere.

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