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People who know two (or more) languages differ from people who know only one in many ways. One way is just their cognitive development and processes. Someone who knows two (or more) languages is constantly processing more than one language in their brain, which is unlike a monolingual person. This can at times affect their cognitive thinking, but it also helps them perceive information from multiple perspectives. Another way they differ, is that people who know two (or more) languages often have a greater sense of how those languages work within different cultures. These people often end up having a broader sense of cultural awareness because when you are learning a language, culture comes hand in hand.

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Being a bi/multilingual speaker offers the chance to communicate with people in different languages, being able to use cognates and maybe learn another language by using cognates. Bilingual speakers feel differently about learning a language depending on the situation. There is one thing to learn a language just to speak an additional language or as a hobby and it is a totally different thing to learn a language because you moved to a different country and you have to learn the language in order to fit in and to use the language in order to speak to your friends, to succeed in school and so forth. In the first situation, learning a language does not have an element of frustration and feeling of losing your L1 identity because you are learning the language because you want to, not because you have to. In the second situation which is actually the situation of ESL learners in our schools, you have to learn the language and your L1 suddenly seems like it is not so important anymore, your identity is not usually valued by native speakers because of the cultural differences between the two. There is no comparison between the two situations when it comes to cultural shock and identity.

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As a person who grew up speaking two languages in the United States, I feel that one major difference from people who know only one involves the cultural pressures of learning more than one language. When I came here as child, I was not fluent or literate in the language of my native country or the United States. My parents sent me to private schools and after-school programs in order to try to improve my literacy in the language of my native country. Meanwhile, social pressures that I felt at school made me prioritize learning English in order to fit in with native speakers. However, some of my friends who are bilingual or speak multiple languages that came to the US later in their lives have very different experiences about learning languages. For them, it is a matter of communicating and achieving native-like pronunciation or grammar is less important.

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At parent teacher conferences with my students and their families, while giving an update on their English language development, I always try really hard to emphasize the importance of their home language and how important it is to keep using it. We tell them they are so much smarter for knowing TWO languages and that as they grow they need to continue working on developing both.
I believe bilingual or multilingual speakers have a higher thinking capacity and are more skilled in many areas.

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The cognitive development and processes of people who know more than two languages differ from monolinguals in that they process two languages in the brain. As a result, it can lead to people who know two or more languages to struggle with finding the exact word they want when describing something, affecting their cognitive thinking. They are able to perceive things also from multiple perspectives.

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As people have previously stated multilingual speakers have a better insight into different cultures as well as a better knowledge of different language forms. Multilingual speakers also differ from monolingual speakers in the fact that they think in both (or more langage) often times they also participate in code switching (using multiple languages in conversation interchangeably).

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Multi-lingual speakers are able to communicate with more linguistically diverse groups of people. They also likely have more knowledge of different language forms, and how language works in different cultures.

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As you learn a new language, you learn about a new culture. This opens your mind to accept various view points, customs, and traditions to being different but valid all the same. Those who speak only one language may not have this opportunity to immerse themselves so deeply into a situation that is not within their previous comfort zone.

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I think people who know more than one language end up having wider cultural awareness than those who only know one.  This is perhaps because when you learn a language so much of the culture comes with it: commonly used religious-based phrases, gendered vs genderless nouns, politeness indicators, pronoun categories, etc.  In a lot of ways, it's impossible to properly and respectfully speak a language and NOT submit to that culture's belief system or worldview.  As a result, those who speak an additional language have greater cultural awareness.

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A lot of people have already mentioned that language contains implicit cultural information.  A specific piece of this that I would like to point out is that people who speak more than one language appear to experience less stress when in situations in which they struggle to communicate with someone who speaks a language they don't.  For example, someone who speaks English and Spanish will probably panic less in an attempt to communicate with a Chinese speaker than someone who only speaks English.  I'm hoping throughout this week I'll be able to make connections to this and have some concrete, linguistics, based reasons why this is.  I looked at this in my capstone for undergrad from a mostly sociological/ political perspectives,  to try to find out if American monolingual-ism contributes to anti-immigrant sentiment  in this country.  Kind of hard to prove, but I think it does.

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One of the major take-aways from sociolinguistics for me was the connection between language use and the way in which we view the world. The more languages acquired, the more perspectives/identities/cultures we are able to connect with and understand. So, not only do multilingual speakers have more linguistic capital/knowledge, they also have more ways of thinking/viewing the world around them.

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I think that being bilingual or multilingual helps people know how to acquire languages and makes it easier for them to acquire another or understand how other languages work.  Many monolingual English speakers don't think about how our language really works, but bilingual/multilinguals have been forced to see languages through another lens.  I think it makes it easier for us to see the function of different parts of language since that is something that changes from language to language.

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In multilingual settings, I think that bi/multilingual speakers' experience a cognitive activation differently than speakers who speaking only one language. I have bilingual and multilingual friends; a couple of them have expressed mental and emotional exhaustion when socializing and communicating with their cultural peers. One even expressed having to almost take on two different identities in these situations.

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Being multilingual can help with understanding the grammatical features of each language, how they are similar and how they are different.

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In addition to understanding multiple cultures, people who know two or more languages also have cognitive benefits that monolingual people do not. Multilingual people have better memory capacities and can multitask more. Being multilingual is actually good for your brain!

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People who speak more than one language can operate within multiple cultures as well as languages, and I think this leads to a more empathetic outlook of the world. When you know more than one language you know that people who belong to other cultures are human, just like you, even though they may have different practices or speak a language you don't comprehend. Multilingual people are perhaps likely to have xenophobic feeling because they have experienced operating in more than one language and culture.

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Bilingual people possess implicit cultural understanding that each culture's language carries with it. Subtle word meaning variations, the way a language emphasizes participant or process via its grammatical structures, commonly-used "canned" phrases unique to a particular culture, etc. all have an effect upon one's immediate experience of life as well as how wider-world events are interpreted and assimilated.

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Bilingual people possess implicit cultural understanding that each culture's language carries with it. Subtle word meaning variations, the way a language emphasizes participant or process via its grammatical structures, commonly-used "canned" phrases unique to a particular culture, etc. all have an effect upon one's immediate experience of life as well as how wider-world events are interpreted and assimilated.