Search results
People also ask
What are the benefits of being bilingual?
Why is bilingual education important?
Does bilingualism make you a better learner?
Is bilingualism a social advantage?
Why should bilingual people learn another language?
Why are bilingual people better able to read news reports?
Aug 12, 2016 · Multilingualism has been shown to have many social, psychological and lifestyle advantages. Moreover, researchers are finding a swathe of health benefits from speaking more than one language,...
Viorica Marian, PhD, of Northwestern University, talks about why speaking multiple languages may have far-reaching cognitive benefits, how the bilingual brain processes language, and how the languages we speak shape the way we think and perceive the world.
Beyond the unifying nature of language, becoming bilingual has proven cognitive benefits for those who take on the effort. These benefits can be subtle, but ultimately bilingualism can make you a better reader, problem-solver, and general learner.
- It Makes Learning Languages Easier
- Bilingualism Makes You Better at Multitasking
- It Makes You More Empathetic
- You’Ll Be More Popular
- Bilingualism Helps You See Things Differently
- It Can Make You Richer
- It Can Make Your Country Richer, Too
- Bilingualism Reduces The Chances Of, and Slows The Worsening Of, Alzheimer’s
- It Improves Certain Executive Functions
- It Makes You More Attractive
Let’s start with an obvious one. If you can speak two languages already, chances are that you’re pretty good at learning them. According to a study from the University of Haifa, those who are bilingual find it much easier to learn a third or fourth language. Even discounting for other factors, like differences in IQ, reading abilities, or other cog...
Bilinguals are in a near constant state of linguistic multitasking. When they have to function in a world outside their first or native language, they have to switch, shift, and process different languages in real-time. The rub is that bilinguals are better at non-linguistic multitasking as well. In one study, a team had children do two tasks: firs...
Empathy is the ability to relate to someone else and to see things as they do. And bilinguals are better at it. A major reviewof the research into this concludes “acquiring two languages helps Theory of Mind development… [which is] the ability to attribute mental states to other people and to predict and explain other people’s behavior on the basis...
If being bilingual makes you more empathetic, you’re probably going to be more likable too. This is because Theory of Mind helps in the development of prosocial behaviors. Children who develop an advanced Theory of Mind are better conversationalists, more socially mature, and are often rated as the most popular in class. If bilingualism makes you m...
The language you speak helps determine how you interpret actions. Imagine you see a person walking down the street to meet a friend. Do you focus on the act of walking, or do you focus on the goal of the walking — that is, meeting a friend? English and French tend to do the latter; German and Swedish the former. What’s interesting is how bilingual ...
If you speak more than one language, you are likelier to get paid more over the course of your life. An article in The Economist (in response to a Freakonomics podcast) described that being bilingual would increase your salary by two percent over 40 years, about $67,000 by the time you retire. The effects are more marked depending on what language ...
And it’s not just you who can benefit financially. The more a local area, state, or country can speak another language, the greater its economic output. Economists from the University of Geneva estimate one-tenth of Switzerland’s GDP is due to its multilingualism. Research by the RANDCorporation think tank has argued that increasing language acquis...
As we get older, the more our cognitive functions will grind to a halt. With gray hair comes a loss of essential gray matter in the brain. At its worst and most extreme, this will manifest itself as dementia (of which Alzheimer’s is the most common). But, according to a huge meta-analysis of all the various studies on the topic, learning and speaki...
All those little jobs your brain does without any praise or consideration are called executive functions. If you tap your left hand while reading this sentence, that’s an executive function. If you decide to read this sentence backward, that’s an executive function. Bilinguals are better at certain kinds of them, namely, those that involve flipping...
But let’s come to the most important reason of all. Being able to speak another language is sexy. It’s exotic, mysterious, and intelligent. But which language is best if you want to win at love? In one study, a team put heart monitors on participants and then measured which languages got the heart racing fastest. Unsurprisingly, the winner was Ital...
Apr 1, 2021 · In this article Kirsten Sutton explores the numerous advantages of bilingualism: the benefits to learners and how bilingual speakers can gain a different perspective of the world.
Jul 28, 2018 · Being bilingual may have important cognitive and economic benefits, but it is usually the personal, social, and cultural benefits that multilingual people are most keen to emphasize.
The benefits of bilingual education are enormous. Local dual-immersion programs help develop more empathetic citizens and improve the world. Bilingual education allows communities to produce citizens who can leverage language as the tool to transcend linguistic and cultural barriers.
