7 ms·

For a Better Brain, Learn Another Language

105 points by diodorus 12y ago

ColinWright 12y ago
Single page: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/more-languages-better-brain/381193/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/more-langu...
- dang 12y ago
  Thanks; changed.
  - ColinWright 12y ago
    Great - now please can you go change this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458371
    - dang 12y ago
      At your service. But how did we miss it?! We must institute a process.
      - ColinWright 12y ago
        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? Tricky.
SpaceManNabs 12y ago
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.
scobar 12y ago
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.
- etherael 12y ago
  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.
- chiurox 12y ago
  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.
- hetman 12y ago
  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.
shortsightedsid 12y ago
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.
- lawl 12y ago
  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.
  - jeffreyrogers 12y ago
    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?).
    - lawl 12y ago
      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.
- akzfowl 12y ago
  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
lukasm 12y ago
How many languages you know - that many times you are a human.
igorgue 12y ago
Usually learning how to do something you do really well (e.g. communicating) in a different way stimulates the brain.
hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
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.
- pcmonk 12y ago
  Thinking more rationally in a foreign language is actually a well documented[0]. I know I myself have noticed it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/foreign-language-decision-making_n_1453615.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/foreign-language-de...
  - dengnan 12y ago
    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.
  - lcedp 12y ago
    From the article: 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. More rational..risky? How so?
    - hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
      Avoiding risk is not necessarily rational. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion
  - lcedp 12y ago
    I wonder if this effect fades out with gaining fluency..
sosuke 12y ago
How about all the languages a programmer 'speaks' does knowing how to code in a dozen different languages help? I'd like to think so. I keep flopping between what second language to choose, Spanish, German or Japanese.
- NhanH 12y ago
  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.
  - wwweston 12y ago
    Is there really any single Chinese dialect I could hope to learn that would enable me to communicate with a billion Chinese speakers?
    - hawkice 12y ago
      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.
      - gurkendoktor 12y ago
        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 :)
    - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
      No. They are mostly mutually unintelligible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
tuke 12y ago
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.
- vowelless 12y ago
  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.
  - jfim 12y ago
    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. [1] http://www.rsr.mtq.gouv.qc.ca/ http://www.rsr.mtq.gouv.qc.ca/
    - pluma 12y ago
      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.
- chrstphrhrt 12y ago
  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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_signs_in_Canada#Stop_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_signs_in_Canada#Stop_sign
viksit 12y ago
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? [1] PDF: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24158/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24158/pdf [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27634990 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27634990
- agumonkey 12y ago
  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). edit: typos, also I believe https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/sicp/book/node105.html https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/sicp/book/node105.ht... is a good example of bridging both worlds. Mapping a scheme to a register machine. Sussman's videos were a real eye opener.
- GarvielLoken 12y ago
  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.
m1117 12y ago
And I'm going to learn Swift yeey, feeling so validated now!!!
microcolonel 12y ago
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.
- falsestprophet 12y ago
  "Staircase wit" is a much better translation than "the spirit of the stairwell." It has the added virtue of being explainable in English.
grantlmiller 12y ago
I would suggest that the author learn the language of rationality... starting with an analysis of correlation & causation. http://lesswrong.com/lw/khd/confound_it_correlation_is_usually_not_causation/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/khd/confound_it_correlation_is_usual...

105 points by diodorus 12y ago

Single page: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/more-languages-better-brain/381193/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/more-langu...

dang 12y ago
Thanks; changed.
- ColinWright 12y ago
  Great - now please can you go change this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8458371
  - dang 12y ago
    At your service. But how did we miss it?! We must institute a process.
    - ColinWright 12y ago
      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? Tricky.

SpaceManNabs 12y ago

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.

scobar 12y ago

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.

etherael 12y ago
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.
chiurox 12y ago
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.
hetman 12y ago
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.

shortsightedsid 12y ago

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.

lawl 12y ago
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.
- jeffreyrogers 12y ago
  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?).
  - lawl 12y ago
    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.
akzfowl 12y ago
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

lukasm 12y ago

How many languages you know - that many times you are a human.

igorgue 12y ago

Usually learning how to do something you do really well (e.g. communicating) in a different way stimulates the brain.

hcarvalhoalves 12y ago

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.

pcmonk 12y ago
Thinking more rationally in a foreign language is actually a well documented[0]. I know I myself have noticed it. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/foreign-language-decision-making_n_1453615.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/foreign-language-de...
- dengnan 12y ago
  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.
- lcedp 12y ago
  From the article: 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. More rational..risky? How so?
  - hcarvalhoalves 12y ago
    Avoiding risk is not necessarily rational. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion
- lcedp 12y ago
  I wonder if this effect fades out with gaining fluency..

sosuke 12y ago

How about all the languages a programmer 'speaks' does knowing how to code in a dozen different languages help? I'd like to think so. I keep flopping between what second language to choose, Spanish, German or Japanese.

NhanH 12y ago
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.
- wwweston 12y ago
  Is there really any single Chinese dialect I could hope to learn that would enable me to communicate with a billion Chinese speakers?
  - hawkice 12y ago
    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.
    - gurkendoktor 12y ago
      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 :)
  - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
    No. They are mostly mutually unintelligible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language

tuke 12y ago

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.

vowelless 12y ago
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.
- jfim 12y ago
  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. [1] http://www.rsr.mtq.gouv.qc.ca/ http://www.rsr.mtq.gouv.qc.ca/
  - pluma 12y ago
    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.
chrstphrhrt 12y ago
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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_signs_in_Canada#Stop_sign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_signs_in_Canada#Stop_sign

viksit 12y ago

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? [1] PDF: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24158/pdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24158/pdf [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27634990 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27634990

agumonkey 12y ago
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). edit: typos, also I believe https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/sicp/book/node105.html https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/sicp/book/node105.ht... is a good example of bridging both worlds. Mapping a scheme to a register machine. Sussman's videos were a real eye opener.
GarvielLoken 12y ago
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.

m1117 12y ago

And I'm going to learn Swift yeey, feeling so validated now!!!

microcolonel 12y ago

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.

falsestprophet 12y ago
"Staircase wit" is a much better translation than "the spirit of the stairwell." It has the added virtue of being explainable in English.

grantlmiller 12y ago

I would suggest that the author learn the language of rationality... starting with an analysis of correlation & causation. http://lesswrong.com/lw/khd/confound_it_correlation_is_usually_not_causation/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/khd/confound_it_correlation_is_usual...