
Is Bilingualism Really an Advantage? - smonusbonus
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/bilingual-advantage-aging-brain?mbid=social_facebook
======
nostromo
Freakonomics did an interesting podcast on this:

[http://freakonomics.com/2014/03/06/is-learning-a-foreign-
lan...](http://freakonomics.com/2014/03/06/is-learning-a-foreign-language-
really-worth-it-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/)

Their conclusion was that bilingualism doesn't increase your earnings
potential commensurate with all of the study required to become bilingual.
(They focused on economic and not cultural value.)

The exception was English. If you don't speak English, you will make much more
if you learn English.

They also discussed how supply-side is important in the market for bilinguals.
In the US, learning Spanish will not increase your income by much, but
learning German might.

~~~
pluma
The obvious question would be whether this works differently for languages
learned as a child vs as an adult.

For me the "cost" of learning English as a second language in school was
negligible (even if you factor in all the hours actually spent in class)
because a lot of the learning was actually passive or even recreational (e.g.
watching movies, playing games).

OTOH, learning a second (or third) language later on would have required much
more investment. I actually tried several languages in university and
eventually decided that I just didn't have the time or interest to learn any
of them properly (i.e. the cost would have been too high and the immediate
return extremely low with long-term return also being questionable).

~~~
cbr
To figure the "cost" of learning a language in school you need to count what
else you could have been learning with that time.

~~~
pluma
Sure, but realistically that's not as "expensive" as it would seem. It's not
like you could replace it with just about anything (it'd have to be a class
that could realistically be taught instead, requiring a realistic syllabus, a
sufficient availability of capable teachers and sufficient demand). And if you
want to be properly realistic, you'd have to limit the alternatives to what
would have been available alternatives in school if it was an elective. And if
considering alternatives outside school, you also have to factor in the
overhead (whereas in school you're already paying that anyway).

Besides, it's naive to treat cost as simply a measure of time. In some cases
time spent in school is much more intense than outside of it. In other cases
it's the opposite.

------
geebee
This is a good article.

It doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for learning a second language and getting
immersed in a different culture. To me, it's so clearly rewarding that I don't
need to worry too much about whether it benefits me.

However, now that I have kids and read the various upper middle class liberal-
ish publications, I've learned so much about what my kids need to be doing.
They need to

learn an instrument, learn to read music, lean not to rely too much on reading
music, develop executive function through certain sports and physical
activities such as dance, skateboarding, tennis, or form-based martial arts,
play team sports, study math in a less abstract way, learn the abstractions of
math, learn to program, learn visual arts in a tactile way, play in nature,
learn to swim, engage in at least 5,000 words of abstract dialog and language,
and… well crap, I forgot some I think. Oh, now I remember - my kids should
also _not_ be over scheduled. got it? good.

Something tells me that if you take, uh, a couple of these things, you're
probably good. Kind of like how doing pushups also builds your triceps. You
don't actually have to do 50 different exercises, one for each known muscle.

Languages? Hell yeah, languages. They're great. Go for it. You could also do
some of those other things.

~~~
zwieback
Yup, same goes for parents. I don't feel like I have to be perfect at every
parenting task. If I'm pretty good at 40% of parenting and my wife is pretty
good at another 40% someone else can pick up the remaining 20%.

~~~
gclaramunt
heck, if they are alive and the house is not on fire, you're doing pretty good
:)

------
rdtsc
Wonder if any studies controlled for income level and economic situation. Many
bilingual kids might have had additional advantage such as families with
parents that get jobs in other countries, or in general could move to other
countries. If they learned it in school, maybe they went through a better
educational system.

For me it was a combination of educational system and just being a country
were multiple languages were spoken routinely.

On the the personal level. I feel that I am able to reason sometimes at a
higher abstraction level because I know 3 languages. In other words many
concepts are less tied to particular words in particular languages, rather
they move up a level, and then there are mappings to individual languages.

This is not unlike learning multiple programming languages. If you know C# and
Java, and C++ you probably have a solid understanding of OO concepts and can
just map them to idiosyncrasies in those languages. If you can even move up
and learn a functional languages like F# or Haskell and there is a whole new
abstraction level you can reason about. But if you only and ever know Java,
there is a higher chance you'd think more in Java's syntax rather than at a
higher level.

------
unsignedint
I moved to US from Japan when I was 13 years old. One thing I have benefited
for sure is the sheer amount of information I have access to. While there are
a lot of overlaps as translated versions of the work is often available
between Japanese and English pair, it is certainly easier for me; actually,
this makes searching for information relatively easier. I have an option to
take a jump in a language in order to narrow down the information I'm looking
for.

The only thing I can think that I missed is some of the social implications
(or cues, if you will) in each language. (Maybe drastically more so in
English, as I haven't had chance to infuse them.) Not that I have much of
problems speaking to other people, and reading documents in either language,
it's just when there are hidden implications within.

~~~
olalonde
I used to be billingual (french and german) as a kid. I remember literally
translating passages of german books/articles a few times for school
assignments. It was easy not to get caught.

------
shenoyroopesh
I can speak in 4 languages and just about manage to converse in a fifth. There
are definitely advantages to knowing more languages than one:

1\. People love you if you can speak their language without forcing to search
for a common language; you can build a rapport much more quickly. If you love
to travel, this will definitely help!

2\. Different languages force you to think in different ways. Different
languages have different constructs and vocabularies/concepts not even present
in English. For e.g. in Marathi/Hindi, the word "sit" can be translated in 2
different ways depending on the respect you show to the other person.

3\. If you have any interest in cultural history, learning the local language
will help a great deal.

Plus I think being able to think in different languages is just wonderful! I
can't describe how boring it would be if I could think in only one language.

Do these translate to monetary gains? Hard to tell. Does it help me lead a
more fulfilling life? Yes, I definitely think so!

Having said that, I definitely want to learn more languages. 4 is really less
in India, there are plenty of people who can speak more.

------
jrapdx3
The article provides a summary of research on a very complex topic and it
appears as usual there's no simple "answer". It seems a pretty safe bet that
bilingualism confers _some_ advantages, though the challenge is to try to
differentiate just what those are and aren't.

The researcher's problem is the enormous overlap of factors affecting
cognitive function. For example, psychiatric disorders are quite common and
associated with deficits in executive functioning, which we might reason
affects capacity to become bilingual in the first place, thus a variable to be
controlled.

However it's also been shown that biological relatives of psychiatrically
disordered individuals have similar (if less severe) deficits. Dispersed into
the general population, it's difficult to screen for the potential confound,
injecting a subtle and essentially incomputable bias into the comparisons of
bi- vs. monolingual individuals.

Similarly, the association with earlier or later onset of dementia is
extremely difficult to parse. We're back to the usual pulpit re: correlation
vs. causation. It could be argued that bilingualism is one indicator of
advantaged systemic integrity. There are no doubt many other signals of such
advantage. Dementia could be the outcome of an intrinsic lack of fitness in
the Darwinian sense.

------
ukigumo
I have to say yes!

I was born in Portugual, so Portuguese and Spanish was all I heard growing up.
But then I went into a german school and picked up German and English. Later I
picked up French and finally Dutch.

My wife has a pretty similar language history so it's quite fun to speak our
own version of Esperanto to our daughter and see what language she'll pick up
first!

Workwise, I would be miles behind where I am right now if I hadn't picked up
English at an early age. I've read somewhere that people who reason in a non-
native language are able to maintain a more rational (less emotional) train of
thought and that certainly seems to be the case with me, but if for no other
reason, I suggest you should pick up a second language because it will
increase your potential earnings! (see the economist's article below).

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/03/language-
stu...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/03/language-
study?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/whatisaforeignlanguageworth)

------
bwanab
My kids are both bilingual. My wife and I are both American, so it was
strictly a choice that we made on the basis of having a desire to bring up
children that had a less parochial look on the world. Raising children
bilingual (i.e. sending them to a bilingual school) at an early age, they both
became bilingual with relatively little pain.

We never viewed this as a means to increasing their earnings potential (at
least not a direct consequence - it's always possible that they alleged mental
benefits of bilingualism has some effect) and I have no way to make a
judgement as to whether it will. They both do very well in their school work,
but once again, I can't determine if bilingualism had anything to do with
that.

At this point neither of them has any desire to pursue any opportunities that
would use their bilingualism, but they're still both teenagers and that could
change at some point.

------
vinceguidry
I'd be interested to find out if having programming skills grants a similar
advantage concerning dementia.

------
dlwj
I think the advantages and disadvantages are minor compared to other
influences. Many poor immigrants for example speak 2 languages. Yet rich well
travelled people also speak 2 languages.

This debate is only possible in the U.S. ... the majority of the world speaks
at least 2 languages.

~~~
mikeash
Really, there isn't a single other country on the planet where only a minority
is bilingual? This strikes me as rather unlikely.

~~~
hnhg
The UK.

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vorg
> Bilingualism, in other words, seems to have a protective effect on cognitive
> decline

Do I really need to say it?... "Those whose cognition will decline slower seem
to be more likely to become bilingual".

------
veidr
The TL;DR for this article: "Yes, there are significant cognitive benefits to
being multilingual, including staving off dementia in old age, but the
benefits may be sometimes overstated."

------
hurin
> In 1922, in “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” the philosopher Ludwig
> Wittgenstein wrote, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

The amount of times this particular proposition has been quoted and rehashed
by ignorant people in completely irrelevant contexts is staggering. (On the
plus side it saved me the ~ twenty minutes that reading the rest of the
article normally would have taken)

------
ArekDymalski
Hmm, a nice exception from Betteridge's law of headlines.

~~~
Retric
I read that as a qualified no. _the advantage is neither global nor pervasive,
as often reported_

Learning anything generally has task specific advantages on related
activities. EX: Getting good at a FPS game has carry over to other FPS games.
And, Language touches a lot of bases, but there is no evidence it helps say
learning to surf.

~~~
kaybe
Well, the article only discusses cognitive advantages, but there is the very
real advantage of being able to communicate better and with more people. They
can teach me how to surf, for example. And I am able to discuss with all of
you, which is nice. Learning a language can be at least as powerful as
learning how to code. (Especially if you start with non-English as a first
language.)

~~~
bigpeopleareold
My Life Goals: 1\. Learn the language of the surfers. 2\. Learn to surf.

------
HarryHirsch
What's it with the anti-intellectualist strain in America? Learning a foreign
language at any decent level means becoming acquainted with the literature
written in that language and with the culture of the country where the
language is spoken.

Learning that kind of stuff is good for you. Even if it doesn't translate into
increased material wealth.

~~~
saalweachter
Well, firstly, the researcher quoted extensively in this article is a Dutch-
born scientist at the University of Edinburgh.

Secondly -- and from here on out I'll be derailing to rant at a more general
'you' than you specifically -- what is with you g-d global tourists and
cultural dilettantes who think a cultural diet composed equally of small
portions of everything is the only valid choice? And why does it always come
back to Americans, specifically? (besides, you know, us all being assholes?)
When you are off visiting a fishing village in Malaysia, do you tell the
fishermen, "You should really visit New York sometime and try the pizza. It
will really broaden your horizons!"?

There is an absurd amount of culture available, more than any one person could
ever consume. Why is it so hurtful to you that someone might be content
immersing themselves in their own culture, or -- worse! -- reading Proust in
translation?

~~~
normloman
You're really arguing that learning about other cultures doesn't have a
benefit? Cross cultural pollination not only contributes to a feeling of good
will between counties, but it's responsible for lots of cultural and
technological innovations. American culture is just a mish-mash of other
cultures. Think about it. You eat spaghetti!

~~~
saalweachter
No, I'm saying that there are multiple ways to live your life. Cross-
pollination may be a good thing, but the bees are not the flowers. Some people
need to be locals, and being a local is not inferior to being a cross-
pollinator.

