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Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

uoc.edu

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Re: Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

#91

Post by marton78 »

torben-friis wrote: post #53

This might be me being overly cautious here, but I would be wary of the political implications of the study. It's from an open University that's a project for lifelong learning funded as a public service in Catalonia - promoting the catalan language in the region is a key point of the project, so studies finding out that bilingualism is something great to have raise red flags about the nationalist agenda behind it. T…

It would be interesting to see how the described effect depends on linguistic proximity. Does bilingualism of e.g. English and Chinese or German and Turkish protect better against cognitive decline than Castilian and Catalan?

Re: Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

#92

Post by hibbelig »

k__ wrote: post #19
Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #16

What does bilingualism correlate with?

Immigration? Going to a school in Europe? Living as a minority with its own language in a country with another language?

In the case of the article, it’s about living in a region where more than one language is locally spoken.

Re: Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

#93

Post by majkinetor »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #78

Do you think Python and JavaScript Count?

I am sure that everything counts.

Scientists like to measure natural language against dementia probably because its easier to do then some other form of knowledge (like being good in multiple disciplines).

From the practical standpoint, learning more then 1 one language doesn't make any sense - practical value you get from it is next to 0 compared to for example learning medicine, electronics, IT, math etc.

Especially because it requires the same amount of time.

Re: Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

#95

Post by luckylion »

majkinetor wrote: post #93
jay_kyburz wrote: post #78

Do you think Python and JavaScript Count?

I am sure that everything counts. Scientists like to measure natural language against dementia probably because its easier to do then some other form of knowledge (like being good in multiple disciplines). From the practical standpoint, learning more then 1 one language doesn't make any sense - practical value you get from it is next to 0 compared to for example learning medicine, electronics, IT, math etc. Especiall…

> From the practical standpoint, learning more then 1 one language doesn't make any sense - practical value you get from it is next to 0 compared to for example learning medicine, electronics, IT, math etc.

That may be true if you're living in a country where English is the main language, otherwise adding English has a lot of practical value.

Re: Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

#96

Post by ekianjo »

ip26 wrote: post #8
trimbo wrote: post #3

> They recruited 63 healthy individuals, 135 patients with mild cognitive impairment such as memory loss, and 68 people with Alzheimer's – the most prevalent type of dementia – in four hospitals in Barcelona and the metropolitan area Wait so, N = 266? All from Barcelona? C'mon.

With proper random sampling you only need something like N = 27 (I forget exactly) to reach p = 0.05 Assuming random sampling, it's a misconception that you need ten thousand participants to have a useful study.

> With proper random sampling you only need something like N = 27 (I forget exactly) to reach p = 0.05

will be difficult to demonstrate that they can control for all individual differences at n=266 to prove differences in dementia outcomes are linked to a single variable.

Re: Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

#97

Post by b0rsuk »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #76
princeb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in singapore, it is the opposite. the working class tend to be multilingual - nurses, deliverymen, (food) hawkers, construction workers, odd-job labourers. when you think of someone who has to juggle multiple languages - mandarin, cantonese, malay, tamil, a smattering of english - often as a necessity, it's someone who's had to hustle at the lower rungs of society. the educated class tend to be monolingual - research…

I’m pretty sure the only places where being monolingual is common, are the countries where English is the dominant language. If you look at the whole population of the world, it’s more common to know more than one language than it is to know only one. If you’re born in a place that speaks a language other than English, then learning English is very common, and a lot of places (like Singapore) have multiple common lan…

No. In backwater countries like Poland English is caught at school, but people don't speak or write in it. Many still prefer polish-language media because LACK CONFIDENCE in their english. It typically goes like "Oh, I had English 4 years ago at school, I'm not that good". You use English skills to read a label on a shampoo or an instruction manual. English is not spoken or even written regularly. Before the pandemic I even played board games with lots of people younger than me, largely university students, and there's visible hesitation to use an untranslated game.

There is some evidence that Poland was spared from XIII black plague, and - so far - relatively unaffected - by the covid19 pandemic - because it lies off the main transport and travel routes.

In Poland, most movies have a Polish voice-over. If you see someone using subtitles, you can be pretty sure he's a cinema fan. Back in the transitional period after 1989 it was common to find english labels on imported goods, but not anymore. Everything except radio music is translated.

Re: Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

#98

Post by ekianjo »

wongarsu wrote: post #63
drumttocs8 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how N=27 could possibly represent and be extended to billions of humans? It is certainly not intuitive to me.

Assuming you take 27 people from all over the world at random, and all 27 of them have two legs, you can be fairly certain that most humans have two legs. You might also conclude that about 50% are male and about 60% are from Asia, but as traits get less frequent your error bars get bigger and bigger. Of course actually picking 27 random people is extremely hard, so actual studies compensate by picking more people.

Random does not mean that it's enough to do a proper group comparison, because individual differences, genetics, lifestyle, etc... are additional factors to take in account for dementia related outcomes.

Re: Actively speaking two languages protects against cognitive impairment

#100

Post by 082349872349872 »

dariosalvi78 wrote: post #94

What about 4 languages? I use English at work, Italian with my daughter, Spanish with my wife and Swedish on the street.

Hej ragazzo, nice golaso!

Four is up there with Charles V[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24513426

[1] who died at 58, due to poor diet and poor (in)breeding? In any case he shan't serve as a good dementia control.

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