
Do Bilingual People Have a Cognitive Advantage? - DiabloD3
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/12/04/do-bilingual-people-have-a-cognitive-advantage/
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jfaucett
This is a little misleading because its dealing only with the "bilingual
advantages in executive functioning" and stating they "either do not exist, or
are restricted to very specific and undetermined circumstances.”. As the
article states as pertains to the task of cognitive control there is little to
no evidence supporting the theory that bilinguals have an advantage in that
area. This isn't dealing with other perceived benefits of being bilingual as
far as I can see.

Me and most people in my immediate family speak 3 or more languages fluently.
Still, in my non-scientific observations I've noticed little difference
between say, multilinguals and monolinguals when it comes to tasks not related
to well, speaking languages. It seems to me that in actuality monolinguals
usually speak one language with greater fluidity since with multilinguals you
are constantly mixing up the languages all the time to greater or lesser
degrees.

Is is quite rare (I can only think of one occasion in my life), where I have
listened to an articulate and intellectual communicator / speaker, who was not
monolingual in whatever language they were speaking.

I think being multilingual has advantages - you can speak multiple languages
:) but beyond that I have often wondered if it is really as advantageous as
scientific news media makes it out to be. Would you be just as well served by
spending your energy building in your workshop, playing music, painting,
studying mathematics, etc?

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beachstartup
i grew up with some people who spoke 2 languages pretty poorly (english and
chinese). they essentially had bad grammar and accents in _both_ languages. i
know for a fact their parents made them speak chinese at home. unfortunately,
by the end of college (i.e. entering the real world where linguistic skills
really count), they hadn't improved much if at all.

it's almost as if they had a 'total lingistuic aptitude cap' and it was spread
out among two languages. i bet if they chose to stick to one language, they'd
speak it better.

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thedavinci2000
Sounds like something a monolingual would say/snark

Anecdotes are just that. I know plenty of people that can dominate two
languages fluently.

Recently read a study where a stroke patient can recover faster if
multilingual or that dementia can be kept at bay longer.

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cryptotype
Regarding fluency, bilinguals and monolinguals often have often have similar
total vocabulary sizes, but bilinguals tend to have a significantly smaller
vocabulary in each language.[1, 2] In other words, vocabulary size(L1,
monolingual) ~= size(L1 + L2, bilingual), and size(L1, monolingual) < size(L1,
bilingual).

1\. Portocarrero et al. (2007).
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617707...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0887617707000224)

2\. Gatt et al. (2015).
[http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/13/136700691557...](http://ijb.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/13/1367006915572399.abstract)

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lindig
Meh. Maybe speaking two languages fluently doesn't have the advantage that
psychologists are trying to measure. But it seems to me almost absurd to
assume that there are no advantages. They might not justify the effort of
learning a second language, though. But anyone who knows two or more languages
has at least a better grasp of semantics as two meanings that are mapping to
the same word in one language are often different words in another. For
example: "sky" and "heaven" are the same word in German, but obviously
different concepts that have their own words in English. Likewise, the noun
"lead" has many meanings that map to different words in most languages.

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detrino
Who is assuming anything? People are conducting science and the evidence
doesn't support an advantage for this particular function. Also, not only do I
not think it is not absurd to consider that maybe a second language does not
offer any significant advantages, I also think it's a possibility that
learning more languages than one could be harmful overall. To assume anything
else without supporting evidence is showing a bias.

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lindig
Fair point - knowing more bears the risk of mixing things up. What overall
harm are you thinking of?

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detrino
Nothing in particular, just admitting the possibility.

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dmingod666
Most people in India speak at least 2 languages. Their regional, national and
the ones in metros also English..

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vinay427
For context, I grew up in the US with parents who moved here from India, so
I'm wondering what others think about this. In my experiences with Indians,
few seem to have a native understanding of a language with comprehensive
vocabulary. It seems that many students take later science/math classes in an
English-language school or university, for example, and so they use those
words in English when speaking an Indian language. Colloquially at least in a
city in India where some of my family lives, it seems like nearly every
sentence includes an English word for something few would know the equivalent
of in the Indian language.

It's worth clarifying that I don't see this as a problem or limitation, but it
can create difficulties with regards to English fluency.

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dmingod666
Well, a lot of languages around the world have the problem where somethings
are just better said in English. Like router, internet, download.. Using their
local variants is weird. Yes, Hinglish(Hindi English) is pretty common.

I wouldn't vouch for the level of language control (of English)the majority of
people have here in India, but, it's definitely improving..

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make3
If not directly, still certainly it broadens your horizons though & exposes
you to a different way of thinking, which is pretty good.

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fffrad
One thing we don't take into consideration is the question itself.

> Do Bilingual People Have a Cognitive Advantage?

Is the same as saying bilingual people are smarter. Now a monolingual will
disagree because why should someone be smarter simply because they speak more
languages.

And the bilingual will feel good about the fact that the question suggest that
they are smarter. It becomes a fight about who is smarter instead of any real
studies. So far all the paper I read are mostly fueled by this argument.

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vectored
I speak four languages on a daily basis (work, work, family, friends). Many of
my colleagues do the same. Some don't. I can't say I have noticed any
cognitive difference between the two sets that can be explained by
multilingualism.

Purely subjective - I have noticed that people in my workplace who exercise
more or play music more have a bit of an edge over those who don't.

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thewarrior
Most Indians are bilingual and some are even tri-lingual. Haven't noticed
anything special due to this.

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cryptotype
Linguistic differences are a major cause of regional tensions within India.

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jheriko
as some one who speaks two languages and is commonly labelled a genius
(against my wishes) i feel i have some valid input here...

i do not have particularly great self-control and discipline.

one data point, but still, since its myself i do feel quite strongly that the
idea that bilingual people have better discipline is an over generalisation.

in particular, living in the uk, where most people speak english as their only
language, most of the people i consider to be substantially smarter and more
eloquent than myself are not bilingual.

so the idea that bilingual people have a cognitive advantage is completely at
odds with my personal experiences.

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weatherlight
TLDR; no.

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nvader
Relevant Wikipedia article on why the answer is almost always no.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

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tristanho
Relevant thread on how people on HN always bring up Betteridge's:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4842803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4842803)

Maybe there should be a law about people mentioning the meta law about HN on
HN?

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weatherlight
lol. I wish I could +1 this again.

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dj_doh
IMHO probably yes. But other benefits out weights this. I speak or understand
some 7-8 languages. Being able to enjoy movies and music from a wide variety
pool makes it awesome!

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betimsl
IMHO no. I speak 4 languages. But one of the best benefits is being able to
understand humor/comedy of those languages and see cultural differences.

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dj_doh
I say music/movies and you say humor/comedy. How's that any different?
Cultural differences is not necessarily reflected thru language.

Also, 7 >> 4\. I win :)

