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posted by takyon on Friday July 17 2015, @08:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the materia-gris dept.

A new study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex suggests people who speak two languages have more gray matter in the executive control region of the brain.

In past decades, much has changed about the understanding of bilingualism. Early on, bilingualism was thought to be a disadvantage because the presence of two vocabularies would lead to delayed language development in children. However, it has since been demonstrated that bilingual individuals perform better, compared with monolinguals, on tasks that require attention, inhibition and short-term memory, collectively termed "executive control."

This "bilingual advantage" is believed to come about because of bilinguals' long-term use and management of two spoken languages. But skepticism still remains about whether these advantages are present, as they are not observed in all studies. Even if the advantage is robust, the mechanism is still being debated.

I find learning more languages makes it easier to acquire new ones because you get better at it, but idiomatic speech and use of metaphor seem to take a real hit.


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 17 2015, @11:12PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 17 2015, @11:12PM (#210648) Journal

    How deep you go is a factor. Knowing a few thousand words to get around and effect basic communication is do-able across more than 4 languages. You can probably also manage to read "The Alchemist" with a dictionary to spot you. But if you want to appreciate the humor or real literature it's a whole different level of commitment. I've read about people being able to speak dozens of languages fluently, but you have to consider them savants that you really can't compare yourself to; they have some special structures in their brains that even neuroscientists are at a loss to explain. And that's partly because those people are so rare and there are limits to the experiments you can do on them to figure out what makes them tick.

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  • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:53AM

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:53AM (#210732) Journal

    How true! Other than English which I learned as a child, two of my other languages were learned by virtue of having to live in countries where those languages were the norm. Yes, I managed and could happily have regular conversations regarding current news items or daily life, but getting a feel for the written word in novels was a different matter. I could understand what was written but there was no way I could emulate the style. Humour is another area where jokes would sometimes have everyone else but me laughing their heads off as I missed the subtlety or a nuance of the joke. As soon as I left that environment and was not using the language on a regular basis, my knowledge and fluency began to deteriorate.

    One language I had to learn to level 4 - level 5 (the highest level) is usually only attained by a native speaker - and I had to be able to interpret and give formal presentations in that language. That language has stayed with me for far longer but, after 10 years or more away from that role the language is slowly slipping away through lack of use. But, as I now have to get to grips with French, when the going gets difficult my brain suddenly pulls words from other languages as it struggles to find the appropriate vocabulary. The passive skills (listening and reading) are much easier to maintain.

    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:57AM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 18 2015, @09:57AM (#210734) Journal

      level 5 (the highest level) is usually only attained by a native speaker

      I should perhaps say that there are people who do reach this level but I have not met many and, unless fully immersed in the language on a daily basis, I suspect it would be quite difficult to maintain it.