
Multilingual People Have Healthier, More Engaged Brains? (2016) - respinal
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/46188/why-multilingual-people-have-healthier-more-engaged-brains
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JamesBarney
Later meta analysis that shows this effect is not true and is due to
publication bias.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29494195/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29494195/)

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dagav
I've been learning a second language, one that is very different than English,
and it has been a complete mind fuck. I can see why knowing two languages
would have a positive effect on your brain: another language is an entire
other way of thinking about the world. Language is an artifact of the culture
that created it, and it crystallizes the values and beliefs of that culture.
By learning the language, you can enter into an entire other world.

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leftyted
Having studied a few languages, I don't agree with the idea that "another
language is an entire other way of thinking about the world". That's not how
it felt to me.

There's a linguistic-philosophical debate over this topic: Linguistic
Relativity (or Sapir-Whorf) vs Universal Grammar (generally attributed to
Chomsky). Though both theories are plausible, I find the Universal Grammar
theory more convincing. There are good arguments on both sides.

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johnisgood
Perhaps "another language is an entire other way of thinking about the world"
is incorrect as long as that another language is another _natural_ language.

You might find [http://www.lojban.org/files/why-
lojban/whylojb.txt](http://www.lojban.org/files/why-lojban/whylojb.txt)
interesting.

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leftyted
Very interesting, thanks for the link.

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codr7
I thought we pretty much agreed that's how it works for programming languages,
and from my experience it applies to natural language as well.

My native language is Swedish. I've studied English since I was 8 (and I'm 42
now), German for 3 years in school and lived there for 4, two years of Italian
and two years of Chinese. It seems the more languages I learn, the more
interesting and worthwhile it gets to compare similarities/differences and the
easier it is to learn new ones.

Learning a completely different language, such as Chinese coming from English,
has similar benefits to learning Lisp coming from Java. It stretches the brain
in exotic ways.

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mistahenry
In my experience, learning a second language has clogged my brain up a bit.
Maybe it’s healthier and more engaged, but it’s sometimes hard to say if it’s
truly been beneficial from a cognitive perspective.

I’ve certainly been humbled and become more confident in pushing through
mistakes made in public. It’s also a really cool skill. But it often feels
like my memory for words is like a unordered linked list. Sometimes I get the
wrong language and must iterate over the list to find the correct language
version.

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Baeocystin
For what it's worth, I agree with you. I consider myself multisemilingal-
English is my primary language, but I have up-goer 5 levels of proficiency in
half a dozen other languages. I enjoy it, but I do not feel like it has been a
net improvement in terms of cognitive function. If anything, more mental
housekeeping is required when I sit down to write in any language, including
English.

I think many people, even multilingual ones, fail to truly consider what they
mean by 'multilingual'. Words and grammar are only the bare surface of what
you need to learn- what actually happens is that you grow a different model of
mindset and culture, one where the words of the new language have meaning.
This only happens over a lifetime of immersion and exposure to the prosaic
realities of the language in question.

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theonemind
That seems like a lot of wasted associations. I already have an (english) word
for most concepts, and don't really feel like I need a second word for, say,
"bread", although words for new concepts or concepts grouped in interesting
ways might have some value. I like the Swedish word "lagom", which doesn't
seem to have an English analog. It'd interest me to know what aspect(s) of
multilingualism promotes a healthier brain so that I can get the benefits from
doing something more productive or useful. Can I block out conversation around
me and do math problems for the same benefit? Meditate? Stop and consistently
reframe situations by some other world-view? My mind just balks at the need to
learn a second set of words for concepts I already know, since the first set
seemed entirely arbitrary to begin with.

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jddj
There's been some research which has shown the reframing being effective, but
they only studied whether considering eg. a trolley problem in any second
language produced significantly different results compared to a native
language.

Somewhat ironically in the context of _wasted associations_ , the article is
in Spanish. But this is one link:
[https://www.psicologosonline.cl/articulos/para-decidir-
con-f...](https://www.psicologosonline.cl/articulos/para-decidir-con-frialdad-
piensa-en-otro-idioma)

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magwa101
Not clicking through to TED "everything will be solved with our optimism".

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grecy
> _TED "everything will be solved with our optimism"._

At lot better to have dreams and plans and goals than "We've done nothing and
we're out of ideas" which is the mentality in a few countries lately.

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hombre_fatal
Might as well link directly to the TED-Ed talk instead of this two-paragraph
article that introduces it.

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awestroke
I foresee a lot of comments from monolingual americans and brits trying to
dispute this.

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asdf21
Am I really monolingual when I'm fluent in multiple programming languages and
endless niche industry jargon?

Jokes aside, I'd assume the context switching would be psychologically rather
similar.

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smt88
The context switching between programming languages bears no subjective
similarity to human language.

As someone who knows 2 human languages and 6-8 computer languages, it's just
not at all similar. They don't use the same parts of your brain, for starters.
You can't describe a dream in Java.

~~~
asdf21
I know French and English and several programming languages, and they do seem
very similar to me.

>You can't describe a dream in Java.

Before you write any code, you first imagine how the application should work.
So yes, a person can codify something from their imagination into Java.

~~~
edanm
> I know French and English and several programming languages, and they do
> seem very similar to me.

I don't know, there are lots of obvious differences. I mean, just the fact
that human languages have much larger vocabularies makes it so that learning a
human language exercises the memory part of your brain _way_ more than
learning a programming language.

(And yes, I'm pretty sure human languages have vastly larger vocabularies,
even if you include things like standard libraries, etc. Especially since most
programmers don't know most standard libraries by heart, as opposed to
vocabulary.)

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sbuttgereit
This is the kind of news story that can be so incredibly misused once it gets
into public discourse.

I would expect that while the study comments on an interesting data point for
academics in the field, in reality the variance that you'll experience
interacting with any one multi-lingual person or any one mono-lingual person
will simply mean that it's trivia in day-to-day life.

Even in designing curricula for a large group where anything of significance
in this study would be worthwhile considering, you'd still want to know how
this compares to other fields of pursuit on some sort of outcome basis before
yelling, "language programs for the win!" The thesis of the title and the
short article (no I didn't watch/listen to the media) doesn't answer the
relative merit question.

So maybe this research points to further study or is nice knowledge for
knowledge's sake... but unless there's something more revealing in the linked
YouTube video... I wouldn't read into it any more than that.

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leroy_masochist
Interesting point about adults acquiring language through the left side of the
brain vs. children acquiring through both hemispheres. I wonder whether that
is nature or nurture -- does it reflect changes in brain structure in
adulthood, or does it reflect the ways in which each respective group tends to
learn languages?

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zzzcpan
That point is actually about emotions. I think what it means is that children
are only developing brain circuity related to emotions and so develop
emotional associations with the words in a second language, while adults
already did and can understand, control and ignore emotions better and do not
develop emotional associations with the words in a second language, or at
least not as much.

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NicoJuicy
A lot depends if it's the same culture ( eg. Roman)

I speak French, Dutch and English.

I understand German and can do simple things with it.

I can understand Spanish a little bit.

But I don't think my brain is different. The mapping is very similar between
those languages.

An Asian/Russian language would be very hard for me to.

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xenospn
As a data point, I'm bilingual, and have been for about 30 years (my first
language isn't English), and I'm kind of an idiot. So there's that.

In all seriousness though, this is something that's only debated in very large
countries with a dominant culture and common language (US, Russia, UK, France,
etc). Growing up in a smaller country that has its own language, pretty much
everyone has to read/write and speak English at some level.

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presstumer
I often wonder if learning a dialect of a certain field has a similar effect.
For example math terms or a complex programming language with things like
monads

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fpgaminer
I would think so. I often find myself cross-germinating the concepts I've
learned from new programming languages, paradigms, and mathematics to other
problems and discussions. Most recently I learned TLA+ which plays heavily
with set theory; in particular the construction of logical "filters" on
infinite sets. Ever since, those ways of thinking have become part of my
mental toolbox that I interject into other areas.

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snakeboy
I think in mathematics and programming, you often are working with an abstract
idea or algorithm, projected onto the tools you are using. Be that the
syntax/style/limitations of a specific language, or a branch of mathematics.

In that way, it is the same phenomenon of trying to express an abstract idea,
projected onto the language in which you are speaking, with similar issues of
syntax/style/limitations inherent to that language.

However, a human language opens a whole dimension of culture and history that
is somewhat truly inaccessible from the outside. In this way, math and
programming don't appear to me to have an obvious analog.

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ummonk
Although I’m bilingual, in practice I’ve become mostly monolingual in that I
only ever speak English. I feel like this has resulted in my thinking becoming
less abstract / conceptual and more verbal.

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michaelcampbell
I wonder if this is actually language, or just that language requires so much
of your brain that anything that requires the same amount would have the same
benefits.

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OldFatCactus
What's the best way to learn a new language?

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WilliamEdward
Immersion. Learn as many random words as you can, by pure memorisation, and
then sit around people who speak the language so you can force yourself to
learn the language.

I 'learned' 2 languages in school and by far the most important part is
knowing as many words as possible, and actually speaking it with natives.
Other than that, you wont get too much out of written exercises or duolingo or
even books. Just stick to those two things.

However, the best way to learn random words is to play a game or read a book,
and then google / dictionary search any word you don't know.

It should be easy to find people who can speak the language with you, but if
you can't find anyone, well... why learn it?

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acroback
I can speak 3 languages and can understand close to 3 more.

And I think I am the dumbest person at work, damn why is my Brain so slow? :(

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thendrill
Because ignorance is bliss. The more you know the more you know you don't
know.

Which 3?

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stazz1
What is a language, anyway? Is that where you use symbols to represent grunts?

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Aperocky
Alternatively, people who know programming languages are on average smarter.

However, that would be confusing cause and effect

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timwaagh
survivorship bias I guess.

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Iwan-Zotow
Tastier as well

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thendrill
—. —

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yelloweyes
yeah no shit. multilingual people usually have more money.

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detaro
source? rationale?

