It seems that there are many studies that have compared mono and multilingual people. I wonder if similar studies have been conducted comparing a group of adults who are complacent with their mental development to a group who've made a conscious choice to actively pursue a deep understanding of a new subject that interests them.
I love learning new languages, but I understand that others may not. They shouldn't be restricted to endure learning another language just to achieve the cognitive advantages discussed in this article. There must exist other options that better suit their interests. Even if the newly acquired knowledge/skill must be relative to communication, there are more ways to express one's thoughts than written and verbal language.
It does indeed sound a lot like the fitness equivalent of the statement "those who play soccer found to have superior speed and endurance to others".
It's a little funny that the previous statement sounds so naive and odd when compared with the cognitive equivalent in the article. I take it as evidence that humans are obsessed with physical performance far more than mental, but considering what can be achieved with the body vs the mind, the mismatch in the importance given to the improvement of either is baffling to me.
The article seems to suggest these studies were controlling for other factors (though obviously one would need to read the study to find out how extensive that control was).
But the article points out another study where people were able to make more emotionally neutral decisions when operating in their 2nd language (even though the effect disappears in the 1st language for the same individuals). So there is definitely something happening in the brain at a fairly fundamental level beyond "practicing cognition". It certainly gives credence to the theory that language provides a lens through which we view the world.
I took a linguistics class a couple of years ago. The cognitive advantages are so extensive because according to a school of thought (Chomsky and Pinker) language itself is part of our human nature, it's innate, and is a product of biological evolution of our human brain. Knowing and switching between different languages on the fly requires a lot cognitive focus but if practiced enough, it becomes second nature, even better if languages were learned while still very young. I grew up speaking three languages (Mandarin, Portuguese, and English) and I do see the cognitive benefits when I'm programming daily in 2-4 different languages (Scala, JS, Python, PHP for instance). I don't confuse language features from one language with the other while I see co-workers mess up from time to time.
I chanced across the original paper [1] by Dr. Thomas Bak a few days ago through a BBC article [2]. The section how they measure this is interesting, for those interested.
Probably applicable to spoken languages as well as computer languages. I find that having deep dived into lisp out of interest, my functions in other languages have over time become almost purely functional, with the occasional side effect - I actually cringe a little bit when a function doesn't return anything. The result is that my code has become immediately unit testable. Perhaps the analogy is true?
My experience with functional programming helped me understand the use of register machines (aka imperative programming). FP has a better ability to cut and expose clean abstractions, while register machines conflates things quickly, making it hard to see if it doesn't fit your brain's inner working. Being on the other side helped me see these hidden structures (whether or not I change the way I write C code for instance).
How is that an analogy?
What you actually said would be that you try to force French phrase and sentence structure into English and cringe every time you here a proper English sentence.
Yes, learning another language has been shown to have cognitive benefits, especially as seen in dedicated, professional translators or interpreters. Nonetheless, these facets have been shown to come from practice. Intellectual rigour is rigour nonetheless, just make it varied. You could say the same things about learning a new instrument, hobby, or skill.
I've learned a couple of languages as an adult and the experience is nothing at all like learning a programming language. The road to fluency in an acquired tongue is extremely mentally taxing. You end up having quite a lot of deep, meditative thoughts sessions about the structure and usage of the language. The first few days spent immersed (i.e. speaking it all day long) can be exhausting. I've never experienced anything while learning a computer language that comes close. I guess the closest analog I could think of would be switching cold turkey from procedural to functional programming, or something.
P.S. Choose Spanish. Waay easier than German, and of course Japanese is among the hardest languages for native English speakers to acquire.
If you want to learn the language for the pleasure of speaking it, you may find it easier to find Spanish speaking people, especially in the Americas.
If on the other hand you want to increase your market value, going the extra mile might pay off since the supply of German and Japanese speakers is probably smaller by an order of magnitude while the GDP (as a proxy for the economic value of the language) is comparable and much denser.
For English speakers German should also be much simpler than Japanese.
I think there are other factors more important than economic. That is probably one of the worst metrics to base any decision on. If the goal is money, there are many ways to get it without learning a language. Seems like an odd primary concern for language learning.
That said, keep in mind that Germans and Japanese people have a much easier time learning English due to it's ubiquity than the OP would theirs, making his employment less attractive to just hiring a local who knows English. Also, going forward, there's a much better chance the spread-out Spanish 'world GDP' will increase somewhere by a large amount. The German and Japanese speaking world are maxed out on GDP potential today. Likelihood of expansion of either died with WW2.
Spanish is an unstoppable train like English has been. It's the safe bet on all fronts, and exporting its culture unlike the insular Chinese languages have remained. An American is lucky to have that be a de facto 2nd language to learn. Much of the world is stuck with something far less relevant going forward (other than English). Even French in Canada, hard to choose Spanish over French if Canada.. yet Spanish is by most metrics the better choice. That with French being one of the better choices, most nations neighbor's have even less relevant languages as an obvious 2nd language choice.
That said, the easy answer is to learn what you have an interest in. Let the money follow that.
Unless you have a specific goal in mind for learning a new language, I'd suggest Chinese. The language itself is by far much different than English (comparing with with all the language you listed above), you will learn about a much different culture than the West, and a billion speakers is nothing to scoff at.
Seconded, but I would add that learning to write Chinese by hand is a HUGE waste of time and should be avoided. If you can choose the right character in your IME, that's good enough.
I would also add two reasons why Chinese is a much better language to learn than Japanese, because I really regret learning them in the wrong order. 1. Japanese makes a lot more sense when you can read Chinese. 2. Chinese is more inventive when it comes to new words, whereas Japanese seems to default to importing the English term. Random example, the @ character is called 小老鼠 (little mouse) in Chinese, but "ato maako" (at mark) in Japanese.
The loan words in Japanese certainly make it much easier to pick up, when you come across them. I can see it being less fun than Chinese in that context given your example.
I very strongly recommend this, too. Fun and practical.
I have been taking Mandarin lessons (eChineseLearning.com) every day for about three months, and am having the time of my life. I took my fourth business trip to Beijing after only one month of lessons (after self-teaching for about two years), and I was amazed by my ability to interact, and even negotiate prices. It was huge fun.
After only one month, I signed up for their 5-lessons-a-week plan. I get up at 6 a.m. every day to converse with my teacher in China via Skype.
I would definitely suggest one-on-one lessons, as I'm doing it. I get maximum reading and discussion time, and the conversation always starts with a description of what I've done over the last day (or over the weekend). So I'm learning all sorts of words (e.g., "clients") that I wouldn't get from a regular class.
I also know some Spanish and Hebrew. Hebrew is useful for me since I live in Israel, and Spanish is far easier to pronounce. But Chinese has been surprisingly easy overall, has helped me with my travels, and give me a big kick.
> Unless you have a specific goal in mind for learning a new language, I'd suggest Chinese. The language itself is by far much different than English (comparing with with all the language you listed above)
I'm not sure I agree that Mandarin/Cantonese are "far more different" from English than Japanese is. They are tonal languages, but AFAIK the grammatical structure of both are more similar to English than Japanese is. Japanese is rather fascinating from a linguistic viewpoint, largely because of the long periods of isolation from other languages.
That said, if one were to learn only one language, with an eye for the future, I think one could make worse choices than Chinese.
Chinese here. Learn Mandarin. It is based on Northern dialects which are spoken by 80% of Chinese people. And it is the official dialect used in China. People are required to use Mandarin in Universities. People are also required to learn Mandarin in school.
Northern part of China is mainly flat field with little mountain, which makes the dialects similar. Some Northern dialects can even communicate without trouble. On the other hand, the Southern part of China has lots of hills and mountains making people move infrequently (in old days, before cars/trains/etc.) That's why most dialects are from Southern part. Cantonese is one of the typical Southern dialect. However, most Southern dialects cannot communicate with each other even if their speakers were live only miles away.
Yes, but most Chinese people can speak Mandarin, even if it's not their mother tongue. So learning Mandarin will indeed enable you to converse with any of a billion people.
Mandarin is the winner on that front. It's the lingua franca everywhere in China sans Hong Kong, although a lot/most people in some areas speak it only as a second/third language.
Same in Taiwan, and even in Singapore I've had fun speaking Mandarin with random hawkers. Taiwan is a great place to learn Chinese without having to mess with the Great Firewall and all that :)
Anyone notice that they're throwing out known translations for these phrases? "Love was in the air", or maybe "a premonition of love"(for 恋の予感), "the spirit of the stairwell" (for l'esprit de l'escalier) is a bit ambiguous, but I'm sure that in context it would make sense, they're not linguistic constructs, but cultural ones.
It seems that every time somebody writes an article like this, they emphasize that sort of ill-conceieved reason for learning a language. If they want to talk about cognitive benefits, they should stick to that.
I really wonder if these studies can be extended to countries which are naturally multi-lingual. By that I mean countries where there are more than 1 language spoken. E.g. Switzerland has German, Italian, French and Romansh as official languages. That means even its more than likely that the average Swiss will know more than 1 language. Therefore, the question I have is whether the Swiss have better brains than someone in England who speaks only English.
Most people ignore the other languages.
Swiss childern would have to learn one other language at school, but learning a language in school sucks so bad that most will not be able to speak anything in it.
You don't learn a language by memorizing vocabulary for exams. You learn it by using it, and that's not happening.
So, I'd answer this with nope. Source: I'm swiss.
I'd suggest look at people who truly grew up bilingual.
Don't you at least learn some of the others to a passable extent? (I had a roommate who was from a French speaking part of Switzerland and he was able to speak at least passable German with my German friends, so I just assumed this was common in Switzerland... but maybe he was just an exception?).
We should. But at least the german speaking part mostly doesn't. At least in my personal experience. Of course some people do...
But every single meeting I had in the french part was done in english because my french is non-existant and so was their german.
I think India might be a better test case for any such study. Most Indians are forced to learn at last two languages and in several parts even three. I guess I cannot speak for the all the rural regions where learning just the local dialect of the state language would suffice but education in most tier-2 and metro cities is carried out in English in most places and everybody knows it is the language they must learn if they are to enter the global marketplace at any point in their lives. Not everyone is equally fluent but they tend to know just about enough to communicate.
In North India, the most prevalent language is Hindi. And several of the other state languages are often related in some way to Hindi making them at least partially mutually intelligible. Like Punjabi and Marathi.
South India is a whole other matter. The four predominant languages there are quite different from the Northern ones. Some of them share different forms of similar words but each has its own script.
Having spent varying amounts of time growing up in Delhi, Madras, Madurai and Bangalore, I can speak, read and write in Hindi, Tamil and English. My fluency in each of these areas tends to vary but I can get by in any one of these alone. Also, through my interactions with friends and neighbours, I can understand bits and pieces of few other languages as well
I guess having twice the vocabulary (or 2x, 3x...) gives you more tools to think.
Sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out something hard, I think/write in english (not my native language), and the thoughts seem to develop more logically (can't explain why though). So I guess it's not just learning, but using it.
Yes. But experiencing the emotional part of a foreign language is also important, especially when you want to read their novels, watch their movies, experience their cultures, etc.
English is my second language and I was unable to understand the underlying emotional part of an expression. Imagine what Independence Day movie will look like without those inspirational speech. I'm getting better now. But still, there always lots of space to improve.
Ultimately, they concluded, as more countries and people across the world start to participate in a global economy and, consequentially, begin to learn foreign languages, more rational and favorable (read: risky) decisions will be made.
It is rather amusing that the picture shows a Quebec stop sign with "Arret/Stop." In France, it would just say "Stop" - no need for bilingualism in that case.
It's probably in New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province in Canada, or Ottawa, for show. I live in Montreal and there are a few hidden-away places that still have English-only stop signs, but the vast majority were converted to French-only after bill 101.
Incidentally, when I visited Quebec, all the road signs I encountered were exclusively in French. As I was driving from Ontario into Quebec, it was like entering a different country.
Note that most of the road signs in Quebec have no text [1], similar to the ones in the rest of Canada (and unlike the ones in the US, which use a lot more text). Notable exceptions to those are construction and information signs, respectively the orange and blue ones, as well as the parking signs. Obviously, locations are going to be in French.
If you think the place names being in French is obvious, you've probably never been to Belgium. As most places in the country have names in both of the national languages, many signs with place names on them carry both.
Typo in the title - easy to miss on multiple readings. It would be nice to have a friction-free way to put things in your "I can fix this quickly" queue. Q: how to avoid abuse?
I love learning new languages, but I understand that others may not. They shouldn't be restricted to endure learning another language just to achieve the cognitive advantages discussed in this article. There must exist other options that better suit their interests. Even if the newly acquired knowledge/skill must be relative to communication, there are more ways to express one's thoughts than written and verbal language.