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leido, nos vale la primera página web que hay en ele enlace

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leido, nos vale la primera página web que hay en ele enlace

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Book Review: Bilingual Life and Reality by François Grosjean

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This is a book review: Bilingual Life and Reality by François Grosjean.

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Interview conducted by Aneta Pavlenko.

Multilinguals are fascinating and have been the object of a few posts already on this blog (see here and here). Today, Dr. Julie Choi of the University of Melbourne, very kindly answers our questions concerning the recent book she has published on her own multilingualism.
Would you please introduce yourself to our readers and say a few words about yourself and your languages?
I am a lecturer in Education specializing in English language teacher education at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in Australia. I was born and raised in New York, living largely within a Korean-American community and speaking Korean (with my family), English (in school) and Konglish, that is, Korean filled with English loanwords, with other Korean-American friends. I left New York some time ago and I don't quite see myself as American nor do I necessarily think of myself as Korean even though this is my ancestral background and I have strong familial ties to Korean.

I have spent equal numbers of years in Beijing and Tokyo being completely immersed in the languages and local and expat cultures but I never felt that I developed a meaningful identity in Chinese as I did in Japanese. My Korean acquaintances gasp in horror when I say this but my Japanese is much more fluent and 'grown-up' than my Korean in all of the macro skill areas because I learned it formally in school and through work. I have a history in all of these labels, languages and places, but I don't have any strong attachments to any of them.
What prompted you to write a book about your own multilingualism?
I've been keeping a diary since I was a little girl. When I started working on my Master's thesis, I found research related to growing up in multiple languages. What researchers could see and say about their participants' multilingual identities was fascinating, rich and valuable for me to read as a grad student but I felt there was a gap - I wanted to hear how multilinguals themselves make sense of their lives through research practices. I wondered how one would do that kind of work in academia.

So I started to piece entries together in my Master's thesis using narrative methods. At the end of that journey I was left with many more questions about diaries, materials that kept falling out of the diaries (e.g. letters, pictures, cards, teachers' notes etc.), and how we come to make sense of our linguistic and cultural identities and realities. I wanted to rewrite my thesis (my life) with more critical insights so I decided to continue pursuing this area further in a PhD using autoethnography. The product of this 10-year journey is this book.
You begin your book with a fascinating story of the many names you had in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Do all of these names refer to the same person?
I think they do, although the people using these names may have a very particular view of me. For instance, my name Juri when used by my family embodies me with my position and history as the youngest sister, daughter, cousin, etc. For my Japanese friends, my name is associated with being their Korean-American friend who speaks Japanese and teaches English. My Chinese name Zhu Li is used by my school teachers who see me as a Korean-American student and by my Chinese students who see me as their Korean-American teacher who speaks Chinese.

In English, I only respond to the name Julie. My birth name, Juria, is so foreign to me. I get annoyed when people try to call me by this (when I have told them I don't respond to it!). I could get rid of all the ambiguity by just changing my name to Julie legally but I can't quite bring myself to that (yet) either. I quite like living in the ambiguity of it all. It makes me stop and think about the 'cracks' in multilingual lives.
One of the dominant themes in your book is your sense of vulnerability, foreignness and displacement. Do you regret being multilingual or do the pros outweigh the cons?
I think I've worked hard to get to where I am today but none of the things I value today would have been possible without my multilingual foundations. My interests, work and the connections I have made with particular friends and colleagues have all been made possible to me through this inherent multilingual and transnational configuration.

The process of writing my autoethnography and unpacking all of those histories helped me to see what can emerge from within those feelings of vulnerability if one channels them in healthy directions. So I now understand the kinds of vulnerabilities I went through and am going through as being necessary conditions for who I have, and can continue to, become.
What have you learned about yourself in the process of writing this book?
At some point in the research-writing process, I came to see myself as no longer concerned (or constrained?) by the label 'multilingual'. I became more interested in the historical, political, ideological, social and cultural embodiment of the languages in my repertoire, the care and ethics I wanted to convey in my writing and how to package this all together into a scholarly voice that I was comfortable with. So in a sense I started sensing a shift from a 'multilingual' to a 'multivocal self'. It sounds corny but I felt liberated in so many respects. This was a radical shift for me.
What does your multilingual life look like these days?
My whole world revolves around teaching and learning these days so even though I don't do anything special to maintain my other languages, I engage with the languages of my students, and future teachers. Together, we produce classroom activities that bring other languages to the fore in the English language classrooms.

I like being away from the pressure of having to "speak" or perform in any one language for extended periods of time. I like listening to others about their multilingualism and exchanging bits and pieces of different languages in conversations. Australia is a really great environment for this kind of playfulness and relaxed attitude towards multiple language usage.
For a full list of "Life as a bilingual" blog posts by content area, see here.
Photo courtesy of Julie Choi.

Reference

Choi, J. (2017). Creating a multivocal self: Autoethnography as method. New York/London: Routledge.

Aneta Pavlenko's website.

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Interview conducted by Aneta Pavlenko. Multilinguals are fascinating and have been the object of a few posts already on this blog (see here and here). Today, Dr. Julie Choi of the University of Melbourne, very kindly answers our questions concerning the recent book she has published on her own multilingualism.

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bilingual life and reality by françois grosjean summary - Buscar con Google

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By FRANÇOIS GROSJEAN. ... Between Grosjean's first book on bilingualism, Life with two languages (1982), and his new book, Bilingual: Life and reality, the professional study of bilinguals by linguists and psycholo- gists has grown ... notes show that G did not completely leave aside his careful scientific style.

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puede valer algo

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Raising a Truly Bilingual Child (Published 2017)

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Don’t assume that young children’s natural language abilities will lead to true grown-up language skills without a good deal of effort.

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Just the other day, I was on the subway in New York City when a family of three sat in the seats across from me. The mother was Japanese and spoke to her two children, who looked distinctly Eurasian, in Japanese. Asking about their day at school, the children replied in English, French and a little bit of Japanese, seamlessly switching between languages as if they were all one and the same.

With more than half of the world able to speak two or more languages, multilingualism is slowly becoming a priority in the United States, with an estimated 20% reportedly bilingual in 2012. In addition to the obvious linguistic and cultural benefits of being multilingual, research shows that there are both cognitive and social benefits as well. To raise bilingual children, parents are recognizing that they need to start early -- well before kids set foot in school. Wanting to immerse their children at home during those critical years of language development, parents are starting to ask: should one parent speak one language, while the other speaks another? What should children speak at home in light of the languages that will be taught in school, spoken among peers, seen on TV and heard in the community? This article addresses these questions by highlighting six research-based models that effectively cultivate multilingual speakers at home.

In this model, it is important for one of the parents' native languages to reflect the language spoken in the community, so that it can be reinforced in the child.

Because Korean is used at home, the child needs early exposure to English outside the home (e.g. in nursery school, in the neighborhood, with extended family).

This model is most common among immigrant families. The child will require support as they learn English in school.

The child will require support as they learn English in school.

The child will benefit from early Tagalog support from outside the home (e.g. in a Tagalog-speaking nursery, with extended family, in community-based programs).

A child's peer group is very important. If they have similar linguistic practices and weave languages together when they speak to each other, the likelihood of raising multilingual children is much higher.

These six models provide children with platforms that promote multilingual development. They also have varying longitudinal effects that depend on the language(s) spoken in the community. In models 1, 2 and 5, for example, there can be changes in proficiency over time. Although children grow up exposed to two or more languages, as they grow older and spend less time at home, the languages in society play a stronger role and may diminish a child's second language ability. In models 3, 4 and 6, however, where multilingualism is a characteristic of the environment outside the home, the child will have more opportunities to use their languages outside the home.

Raising bilingual children requires a lot of intentional planning and can be a lot of work. It requires parents to persevere in a particular language when using another language might be easier. It also requires additional linguistic support as children navigate the two languages at school and at home. To persist, keep the long-term benefits of multilingualism in sight, create multilingual norms and routines around the home, celebrate bilingual milestones with your children, and find families who raise children in a similar way. Though raising children is often a thankless job, bilingualism is a gift that they will undoubtedly thank you for one day.

Have you tried using any of these models? How has your experience been? Please take a moment to share in the comments section below.

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Raising Bilingual Children: Who Should Speak What?

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Just the other day, I was on the subway in New York City when a family of three sat in the seats across from me. The mother was Japanese and spoke to her two children, who looked distinctly Eurasian, in Japanese.

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Myths about raising a child with more than one language abound. Sometimes parents are discouraged from doing so. They're told it can lead to confusion and speech delays, or that they've missed the window of opportunity. Here are the most common myths - and the real story behind raising a child to be bilingual.

1. Growing up with more than one language confuses children.

This is by far the most prevalent of all the misconceptions. Some parents think that if a child is exposed to two languages at the same time, she might become confused and not be able to differentiate between them.

"From just days after birth, all infants can tell the difference between many languages," says Barbara Zurer Pearson, author of Raising a Bilingual Child. She says this is especially true when the languages are quite different from each other - as different, for example, as French and Arabic.

"At that young age, infants generally still have trouble telling two very similar languages apart, like English from Dutch. But by about 6 months of age, they can do that too," she says.

The confusion myth is probably the result of older research that looked at poorly designed studies and drew the conclusion that early exposure to two languages put children at a disadvantage. This research prompted some immigrant parents to drop their heritage language and emphasize proficiency in English.

2. Raising a child to be bilingual leads to speech delays.

Some children raised bilingual do take a little longer to start talking than those raised in monolingual households. The delay is temporary, however, and according to experts, it's not a general rule.

Unfortunately, parents who raise concerns about the speech development of their bilingual child are often told to stick to one language. This happens because in the past, bilingualism was considered the culprit in problems with language development.

"Research indicates that bilingualism does not cause delays in either speech or language acquisition," says Ellen Stubbe Kester, president of Bilinguistics, which offers bilingual speech-language services in Austin, Texas.

Even if your child has already been diagnosed with some kind of speech delay, raising him bilingual won't make his speech any more delayed.

"Studies have found that children with language delays who are in dual language environments gain language at the same rate as those in monolingual environments," says Kester.

3. Bilingual children end up mixing the two languages.

Mixing languages is both inevitable and harmless. But to some unfamiliar with bilingualism, it's proof that the child can't really tell the languages apart.

Most children who are raised bilingual do resort to mixing as they sort out both languages. In addition, one of the languages often has a stronger influence on the child than the other. Kids who have a smaller vocabulary in the minority language may draw on words from the majority language as needed.

Experts agree that mixing is temporary. Eventually, it goes away as a child's vocabulary develops in both languages and she has more exposure to each one.

In actuality, bilingual speakers of all ages mix their languages (also known as code-switching). A perfect example is the widespread use of Spanglish (mixing English and Spanish) by Latinos in the United States.

"Sometimes people do it because they don't know a word they need in the language they're speaking," says Pearson. "Some people mix on purpose because they like the word or phrase in the other language better."

Children model what they see and hear, so if your child lives in an environment in which mixing languages is the norm, expecting her not to do so is unrealistic.

4. It's too late to raise your child bilingual.

It's never too late - or too early - to introduce your child to a second language.

"Learning a second language is easier for children under 10, and even easier for children under 5, compared with the much greater effort it takes adults," says Pearson.

The optimal time, according to experts, seems to be from birth to 3 years - exactly when a child is learning his first language, and his mind is still open and flexible.

The next best time for learning a second language appears to be when kids are between 4 and 7 years old, because they can still process multiple languages on parallel paths. In other words, they build a second language system alongside the first and learn to speak both languages like a native.

If your child is older than 7 and you've been thinking about raising him bilingual, it's still not too late. The third best time for learning a second language is from about age 8 to puberty. After puberty, studies show, new languages are stored in a separate area of the brain, so children have to translate or go through their native language as a path to the new language.

"We hear so much about the special 'window of opportunity' for young children to learn two languages that it can be discouraging to the older child," says Pearson. "It's true that it's easier to start earlier, but people can learn a second language even after the window has closed."

5. Children are like sponges, and they'll become bilingual without effort and in no time.

Although it's easier for children to learn a new language the earlier they're exposed to it, even then it doesn't happen by osmosis. It's unrealistic to expect your child to learn Spanish by watching countless episodes of Dora the Explorer on television.

Learning a language doesn't have to be a chore. But introducing a second language to your children does require some kind of structure and, most important, consistency, whether it's through day-to-day conversation or formal instruction. The idea is to expose them to language learning in meaningful and interesting ways that are connected to real life.

Get ideas and strategies for raising a bilingual child in Raising a bilingual child: Fun, music, and games.
Bilingual freelance journalist Roxana A. Soto is the co-founder and co-editor of SpanglishBaby, a website for parents raising bilingual and bicultural children.

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Raising a bilingual child: The top five myths | BabyCenter

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Myths about raising a child with more than one language abound. Sometimes parents are discouraged from doing so. They're told it can lead to confusion and speech delays, or that they've missed the window of opportunity. Here are the most common myths - and the real story behind raising a child to be bilingual.

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I observed how, after spending three years away from my home country, and not speaking my native language, I started feeling it difficult to speak it perfectly. Since the Danish winter begins already in September, I put together the essentials you need to get through these cold seven months.

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Post written by François Grosjean.

Some people believe you cannot be a "real" bilingual if you have not acquired your two languages in infancy or at least as a young child. It's true that there is something magical about a toddler who speaks one language to her father and another to her mother. But in fact, one can become bilingual at any time during one's life - as a child, as an adolescent, or as an adult.

Children who acquire two languages simultaneously have been the object of many studies and books. Their parents often adopt an approach that allows them to receive two language inputs but they are in fact rarer than children who acquire their languages successively.

The majority of child bilinguals start monolingually. They first acquire a home language and then, usually when they start going to school, they learn a second language, most often the majority language. Literally millions of children throughout the world have become bilingual in this manner. Then, depending on the country they live in, they may start learning a third (and even a fourth) language as a school subject.

Older children and young adolescents may also become bilingual. This will happen when they move to another linguistic region or to another country and start to be schooled in their new language. (This was my case when I was eight). Writer Eva Hoffman relates vividly in Lost in Translation how at age 13 she arrived in Canada from Poland and was immersed in a new language and culture.

Can one become bilingual later on? There is no upper age limit for acquiring a new language and then continuing one's life with two or more languages. Nor is there any limit in the fluency that one can attain in the new language with the exception of pronunciation skills. Acclaimed novelist Agota Kristoff fled Hungary at age 21 during the events of 1956 and came to the French-speaking part of Switzerland. She acquired French from scratch and many years later published her first novel.... in French!

The main factor that leads to the acquisition and development of a language is the need for that language - the need to interact with others, to study or work, to take part in social activities and so on. If the need for a language is present, then language acquisition will usually take place. This is true of children as it is of adults.

Other factors must also be present: enough language input and use; the help of family, friends, colleagues, and the community in general; formal language learning for some; and positive attitudes towards the language and culture in question, as well as towards bilingualism.

Some might ask: Isn't it better to start becoming bilingual as early as possible? This really depends. For example, as concerns need, a second language may not be needed early in life, hence the fact that bilingualism may develop later on only. If the need for a language is not present, or no longer present, then the language may not be acquired or may become dormant.

There is also the question of language fluency. Some researchers have downplayed the "earlier you start the more fluent you become" argument. It is true that for native-like pronunciation, the "sensitive period" range is shorter but even then I have known bilinguals who have acquired their second language at age 15 and have no accent in it. As for other skills, the window is not as clearly marked and acquisition can take place at any time.

Admittedly, some underlying listening and speaking mechanisms may not be the same as those of early bilinguals but this does not usually impede communication.

"Life as a bilingual" posts by content area: http://www.francoisgrosjean.ch/blog_en.html

François Grosjean's website: www.francoisgrosjean.ch

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Post written by François Grosjean. Some people believe you cannot be a "real" bilingual if you have not acquired your two languages in infancy or at least as a young child. It's true that there is something magical about a toddler who speaks one language to her father and another to her mother.

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Existen personas brillantes en la adquisición y el dominio de idiomas diferentes a su lengua materna. Se conocen casos de personas que pueden llegar hablar hasta 30 lenguas, algunas de ellas tan dispersas y diferenciadas como el alemán, el mandarín o el thai.

Se entiende por bilingüe aquella persona que es capaz de hablar dos lenguas y por políglota "una persona versada en varias lenguas" (RAE) , aunque según el ejemplo anterior el adjetivo que mejor lo designaría podría llegar a ser el de hiperglota, haciendo referencia a aquellas personas que son capaces de hablar más de 10 lenguas.

En el proceso de adquisición del lenguaje intervienen diferentes procesos cognitivos: desde la memoria declarativa o explícita para la rememoración de actividades vividas, vocabulario o normas gramaticales, hasta la memoria de procedimiento o procedimental encargada de la programación de los músculos para la correcta pronunciación y acento.

Según un reciente estudio de la Universidad de Georgetown en Washington, el conocimiento y el uso de diversas lenguas conlleva asociado el desarrollo de determinadas áreas del cerebro (aumento de la materia gris) y contribuye a la mejora de otras habilidades cognitivas (por ejemplo, la atención y la memoria a corto plazo).

El aprendizaje y uso del lenguaje es uno de los procedimientos cognitivos más complejos. Focalizaremos el interés de este artículo en valorar cuál es el mejor momento para iniciar a los niños en el conocimiento de un idioma diferente al materno, y en estudiar las ventajas/inconvenientes de conocer más de dos lenguas. Ambos temas los vamos a abordar en el siguiente artículo, que pretende responder entre otras las siguientes preguntas:

¿Cuál se puede considerar el momento idóneo para incorporar el aprendizaje de un idioma diferente al materno? ¿Es conveniente que sea en los primeros años de vida del niño?

¿Qué ventajas a largo plazo tiene el conocimiento de diferentes idiomas?

Veamos a continuación algunas de las ventajas relacionadas con el aprendizaje de idiomas diversos en la infancia:

Crecer con múltiples idiomas es la manera más fácil y más rápida de aprender una lengua extranjera. Este proceso de aprendizaje se desarrolla de forma natural y en paralelo con la adquisición de la lengua materna.

El multilingüismo se ha demostrado que ayuda a desarrollar habilidades de lectura y escritura superiores, así como facilita el posterior aprendizaje de lenguas con similitudes en el ritmo, la entonación o las estructuras gramaticales entre otros aspectos.

Adquirir el conocimiento de lenguas extranjeras, contribuye al conocimiento de la diversidad cultural, facilita la adaptabilidad social y también se ha conocido que repercute favorablemente en la autoestima y la autoconfianza.

Cuando antes se incorpore el aprendizaje de un idioma extranjero, mayor será la posibilidad de adquirir un nivel alto de competencia en el mismo. En ese sentido, podemos afirmar que a largo plazo favorece el acceso al conocimiento y en la edad adulta a posibles mejores opciones laborales.

El conocimiento de un idioma extranjero aporta ventajas a largo plazo en la salud mental de la persona. Según un estudio de Ellen Bialystok (2009) profesora de la York University (Canadá), hablar dos idiomas puede llegar a retrasar en cinco años el diagnóstico de problemas de demencia. Si los idiomas que conocemos son tres, este valor alcanza una media de 6,4 años.

¿Qué inconvenientes se dan ante la temprana incorporación del aprendizaje de un idioma extranjero durante las edades pediátricas?

Podríamos llegar a afirmar que hay cuatro posibles desventajas ante el tema que tratamos, pero que se tratan de riesgos potenciales y que por tanto, se podrán dar en mayor o menor grado y son de importancia relativa. Veamos cuáles son:

1. Hablar más tarde. Si bien no hay evidencia científica que demuestra que los multilingües comienzan a hablar más tarde, muchos padres estiman que hay un retraso de tres a seis meses en comparación con los niños monolingües de la misma edad. Esta realidad es comprensible, desde el mismo momento en que constatamos que el niño se enfrenta a una situación de un nuevo aprendizaje en el que debe duplicar sus esfuerzos: adquirir el doble de palabras, conocer dos sistemas fonéticos diferentes, etc. Pese a ello, también es cierto que hay niños que solo adquieren un lenguaje y que demoran más tiempo que la media en dicho proceso. Por tanto, valorar esta cuestión como desventaja cuando conlleva la adquisición con una mínima demora de dos idiomas, puede considerarse como trivial.

2. Mezcla de idiomas. Intercambiar palabras entre los diferentes idiomas que están adquiriendo, es común entre los niños. Pese a ello, hay que reconocer que este es un fenómeno temporal y que mediante la práctica y la supervisión suele reconducirse sin ningún problema. Es importante analizar cuál es el aspecto que motiva la mezcla de palabras. Si éste es que no se conocen el vocabulario correcto, debe considerarse como una buena opción para enseñar el término correcto. Si implica un uso incorrecto, es necesario la corrección para estimular al máximo el aprendizaje de la terminología correspondiente a cada idioma. La mejor manera de reconducir esta situación de confusión de vocabulario, es hablar al máximo y aplicar el lenguaje que genere más dificultad en el contexto familiar y escolar.

3. Esfuerzo adicional para los padres. El aprendizaje de un idioma extranjero requiere de recursos, tanto de tiempo si los papás disponen del suficiente nivel para ser "maestros" o "coach" de sus hijos, como a nivel económico, para la contratación de una guardería o escuela infantil que incorpore el aprendizaje del idioma extranjero en los primeros años de vida del niño. Lamentablemente el acceso a centros educativos públicos que ofrezcan el aprendizaje de un idioma extranjero en la etapa pre-escolar no es equilibrado a lo largo de nuestra geografía.

4. Lectura y escritura. Es recomendable que la alfabetización lingüística en el idioma extranjero se haga a nivel integral, por tanto, no solo a nivel de la comprensión oral y del habla, sino también en relación con las competencias relacionadas con la lectura y la escritura. En ese sentido, es importante el acceso al máximo número de recursos y estímulos para la inmersión (visionado de películas, lectura, practica del idioma en los viajes al extranjero, etc.).

Cada vez son más los centros educativos que se plantean impartir determinadas asignaturas del currículo académico en un idioma extranjero. De este modo, no sólo se adquieren los contenidos relacionados con la disciplina en cuestión, sino también en relación con la práctica del idioma y el nivel de adquisición y comprensión de terminología específica (por ejemplo, sobre ciencias naturales o historia).

Como conclusión, podemos afirmar que es recomendable la adquisición de una segunda lengua en las edades más tempranas. Este proceso se puede llevar a cabo de forma paralela al aprendizaje del idioma materno.

Las ventajas que conlleva ya las hemos tratado anteriormente, destacaríamos además el hecho de que hará más fácil la adquisición de un tercer idioma. Las desventajas, como ya vimos son relativas y subsanables ... nuestra recomendación es alimentar a nivel cognitivo a los niños con el conocimiento de nuevos idiomas, dado que hará que su reserva cognitiva aumente para en edades avanzadas evitar el inicio de episodios de demencia.

Esta realidad nos demuestra que la salud es una cuestión integral de buenos hábitos, no sólo alimenticios y de tipo físico, sino también de tipo cognitivo.
Acceso a las fuentes de consulta:
Ventajas del bilingüismo en la infancia. Guía Infantil. [Fecha de consulta: 30/07/2015]

The Pros and Cons of Raising a Multilingual Child. Multi Lingual Children. [Fecha de consulta: 30/07/2015]

Los beneficios de aprender idiomas desde pequeños. Crecer Feliz. [Fecha de consulta: 30/07/2015]

How to learn 30 languages. BBC. [Fecha de consulta: 30/07/2015]

E, Bialystok. "Bilingualism: Language and Cognition" 12 (1), 2009, 3-11 C 2008 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S13667289080034773.

Las personas que hablan más de una lengua tienen más materia gris. La Vanguardia, 23 de julio de 2015.

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Niños bilingües o políglotas: ventajas e inconvenientes

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Existen personas brillantes en la adquisición y el dominio de idiomas diferentes a su lengua materna. Se conocen casos de personas que pueden llegar hablar hasta 30 lenguas, algunas de ellas tan dispersas y diferenciadas como el alemán, el mandarín o el thai.

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Por Kaisa 6 minutos de lectura
"Los límites de mi lenguaje son los límites de mi mundo",
Ludwig Wittgenstein

El lenguaje alimenta nuestro cerebro, enmarca nuestros pensamientos y posibilita una comunicación compleja. Las palabras, expresiones y peculiaridades únicas de nuestro idioma definen en gran medida cómo vemos y entendemos el mundo. Si eres monolingüe, el mundo tiene unos límites más definidos. No obstante, en una época de comunicaciones sin fronteras y viajes globales, parece casi arcaico estar limitado a un solo idioma, incluso aunque tengas la suerte de hablar un idioma internacional si tu lengua materna es el español o el inglés.

Pero, ¿ser bilingüe (hablar dos idiomas) o incluso multilingüe es tan bueno como lo pintan? ¿Se abre realmente el mundo ante nosotros, aun cuando Google Translate puede hacer eso con un simple clic? ¿Puede hacer que las economías sean más prósperas, ayudarnos a tener salarios más altos o que incluso haga que seamos más felices, tengamos más relaciones personales en nuestras vidas? ¿Y es, como a la cultura popular le gusta decir, el secreto para criar niños superinteligentes?

EL MITO DEL NIÑO BILINGÜE

El cerebro es un órgano muy dúctil. Desde el nacimiento hasta la edad adulta, se desarrolla, se adapta, aprende y vuelve a aprender, incluso aunque haya sufrido lesiones. El idioma es un componente esencial del funcionamiento del cerebro a lo largo de toda la vida, pero, al igual que el propio cerebro, la ciencia todavía no tiene toda la información sobre cómo el idioma hace su magia en esas conexiones neurales.

Aunque se ha desacreditado la antigua creencia de que exponer a los bebés a más de un idioma puede acabar confundiéndolos, hacer que sean menos inteligentes o incluso causarles esquizofrenia (sí, la gente se creía esto de verdad), el péndulo se ha inclinado en la dirección opuesta durante los últimos años. Hay libros y artículos que pregonan que el bilingüismo es una varita mágica que transformará a todos los niños en pequeños genios multitarea.

Numerosos estudios, a menudo citados en la prensa, han alegado que, entre otras cosas, aprender dos idiomas durante la infancia mejora un sinfín de habilidades cognitivas, haciendo que el cerebro sea más hábil para alternar entre tareas, centrarse en un entorno de mucha actividad, como el aula, y recordar las cosas. Según estos estudios, el aprendizaje y uso de dos idiomas hace que los niños sean más inteligentes.

Pero cuando una joven investigadora llamada Ángela de Bruin, que además es bilingüe, investigó en profundidad cientos de estos estudios, descubrió que los mismos sobrevaloraban a menudo las ventajas y presentaban tanto pruebas concluyentes como no concluyentes. La afirmación "ser bilingüe es mejor" se estaba afianzando en la cultura popular, pero la postura crítica de Ángela de Bruin sobre la investigación mostró que los beneficios no estaban tan claros ni eran tan universales como se había establecido.

Esto no quiere decir que no existan beneficios, y puede que incluso resulten ser bastante significativos una vez que los estudios científicos avancen. Y, más allá de las destrezas puramente cognitivas, pueden ser igual de importantes los beneficios sociales. Un estudio reciente, por ejemplo, concluyó que los niños bilingües, incluso los niños que simplemente están expuestos a un segundo idioma, interpretan mejor las intenciones de otras personas, ya que son capaces de ver las cosas desde la perspectiva de esas personas. Los investigadores deducen que esto hace que sean más empáticos y comprendan mejor lo que quiere decir el orador.

La capacidad de empatizar así supone una ventaja social, pero, además, aprender y hablar más de un idioma supone otra ventaja considerable: mantiene el cerebro sano a lo largo de la vida.

LA VERDAD SOBRE EL CEREBRO BILINGÜE

Al cerebro, como a cualquier músculo, le gusta hacer ejercicio, y resulta que dominar dos o más idiomas es una de las mejores maneras de mantenerlo en forma y de frenar enfermedades degenerativas, como la demencia. De hecho, las personas bilingües muestran síntomas perceptibles de la enfermedad de Alzheimer casi cinco años más tarde que las personas que son monolingües y solo hablan un idioma. Eso es mucho más de lo que los mejores medicamentos modernos pueden ofrecer. Sorprendentemente, esta ventaja es notable incluso entre las personas incultas y sin estudios.

Además, el bilingüismo auténtico beneficia de forma específica y diferenciada a aquellos que hablan regularmente dos o más idiomas con un nivel nativo y, lo más importante, que alternan entre ellos de forma regular: los cerebros de los portorriqueños de Nueva York que hablan español e inglés en su día a día son sin duda más ágiles y dinámicos que los monolingües. Un estudio sobre singapurenses que se criaron con su lengua materna asiática y con el inglés, hablando las dos de forma regular, llegó a una conclusión similar. Se mostró que los bilingües que no solían alternar entre los dos idiomas o solo usaban uno de ellos en un escenario limitado, como el hogar, obtenían muchos menos beneficios.

También merece la pena examinar el aspecto cultural, ya que responde a esta pregunta importante: ¿Hablar más de un idioma nos ayuda a sentirnos más conectados con el mundo o, como bien señaló Carlomagno, "es como poseer una segunda alma"?

EL PREMIO DE LA BICULTURALIDAD

Los idiomas nos ayudan a darle sentido al mundo y pueden llegar incluso a influir en el modo en que lo vemos y describimos, tal y como muestra un estudio reciente sobre personas de habla inglesa y alemana. Tampoco hay duda de que una persona de habla finlandesa y otra de habla árabe, por ejemplo, describirían el mundo de forma diferente. Después de todo, la persona que habla árabe no necesita las 40 palabras o expresiones relacionadas con la nieve que necesita la que habla finlandés y es probable que, como resultado, la forma en la que la de habla finlandesa describa y, quizás experimente, el maravilloso mundo invernal sea notablemente distinta. Si una persona hablara tanto finlandés como árabe, ¿no darían como resultado estas dos relativamente diferentes maneras de describir el mundo una visión del mismo más amplia y matizada?

Muchos estudios avalan esto, mostrando que las personas que hablan diferentes idiomas obtienen puntuaciones más altas en las pruebas que miden la amplitud de miras y la sensibilidad cultural, y les es más fácil ver las cosas desde una perspectiva (cultural) diferente. El bilingüismo, por lo tanto, parece que hace a la gente bicultural (o multicultural si se hablan más de dos idiomas), una ventaja significativa en el presente mundo sin fronteras y una habilidad importante a la hora de viajar y conocer nuevas culturas y personas.

EL BILINGÜISMO EN LOS NEGOCIOS

Los beneficios del bilingüismo no terminan ahí. Estudios realizados en Suiza, Gran Bretaña, Canadá y la India, así como nuestro propio EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI), resaltan los beneficios económicos asociados con el bilingüismo o multilingüismo en todos los niveles.

Un estudio suizo, por ejemplo, refleja que se estima que el multilingüismo aporta el 10 % del producto interior bruto (PIB) de Suiza, lo que demuestra que las destrezas lingüísticas de los trabajadores abren más mercado para el comercio suizo, beneficiando en gran medida a la economía en su conjunto. En Gran Bretaña, por otro lado, se ha estimado que el costo de la obstinada adhesión del país a la lengua inglesa y la falta de voluntad para invertir en el aprendizaje de otros idiomas supone la alta cifra de 48 000 millones de libras esterlinas al año, o un impresionante 3,5 por ciento del PIB.

Para las empresas, las habilidades lingüísticas de sus trabajadores -ya sea un idioma hablado en un nuevo mercado en el que se están expandiendo o el inglés, la lengua franca global- son igual de importantes. En un estudio llevado a cabo por la Unidad de Inteligencia de The Economist, citado en el EF EPI de 2014, casi el 90 por ciento de los directivos señalaron que una mejor comunicación transfronteriza mejoraría la rentabilidad, mientras que otro estudio observó que el 79 por ciento de las empresas que han invertido en los conocimientos de inglés de sus trabajadores han experimentado un aumento en las ventas.

A nivel individual, los beneficios del bilingüismo son un poco más difíciles de cuantificar, ya que dependen principalmente de la industria, la ubicación y el nivel de empleo. Un estudio realizado en Canadá en 2010, por ejemplo, mostró que los trabajadores bilingües ganaban entre un 3 y un 7 por ciento más que sus colegas monolingües. Hablar los dos idiomas oficiales del país -inglés y francés- les ayudó a ganar más dinero, incluso aunque no se les exigiera hablar el segundo idioma en el trabajo. Estudios realizados en los Estados Unidos han mostrado que hablar un idioma extranjero puede incrementar el salario de un 1,5 a un 3,8 por ciento (al menos), y que los conocimientos de alemán son los más valorados debido a su relativa escasez y la importancia de Alemania en el comercio mundial. En la India, este aumento era aún más notable, aquellos que hablaban inglés ganaban, de promedio, un 34 por ciento más por hora.

Los directivos bilingües o multilingües son también cada vez más valorados y solicitados: los seleccionadores de personal y los líderes de la industria consideran que estos directivos están mejor preparados para gestionar relaciones comerciales y equipos internacionales.

SER BILINGÜE ES MEJOR. PUNTO

Ser bilingüe tiene beneficios claros y muy tangibles. Aunque hay pocas pruebas de que criar a los niños de forma bilingüe les proporcione una ventaja cognitiva importante, el aprendizaje continuo y el uso de un segundo idioma de forma regular parece hacer sin duda que nuestros cerebros sean más ágiles y adaptables. Por otra parte, los beneficios económicos pueden ser considerables. Hablar más idiomas también nos hace más abiertos de mente y nos ayuda a sentirnos más conectados con otras culturas y con el mundo. Quién sabe, tal vez incluso el bilingüismo pueda fomentar la paz y el entendimiento mundial. Si esta no es una buena razón para aprender otro idioma, no sé cuál puede ser.
Actualizado en agosto de 2016.
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SER BILINGÜE ES MEJOR (Y AQUÍ TIENES EL PORQUÉ) - EF

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Por Kaisa 6 minutos de lectura "Los límites de mi lenguaje son los límites de mi mundo", Ludwig Wittgenstein El lenguaje alimenta nuestro cerebro, enmarca nuestros pensamientos y posibilita una comunicación compleja. Las palabras, expresiones y peculiaridades únicas de nuestro idioma definen en gran medida cómo vemos y entendemos el mundo.

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Por Roxana Soto

Existen muchos mitos acerca de criar a un hijo bilingüe. Muchos padres de familia se desaniman porque les dicen que aprender dos idiomas puede confundir a sus hijos y causar retrasos en el habla, o que es demasiado tarde para empezar. Aquí presentamos los mitos más comunes y las razones por las que son infundados:

Criar a un niño en más de un idioma lo confunde

Ésta es la más común de las ideas equivocadas. Algunos padres creen que un niño que aprende dos idiomas a la vez termina por no diferenciarlos, y eso le crea confusión.

"Después de tan sólo días de haber nacido, todos los bebés pueden diferenciar varios idiomas", asegura Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D., autora de Raising a Bilingual Child, quien destaca que esto es especialmente cierto cuando se trata de idiomas muy diferentes entre sí, como el francés y el árabe.

"A esa edad, los bebés tienen dificultades para diferenciar dos idiomas más similares, como el inglés y el holandés, pero adquieren esa habilidad a partir de los 6 meses", añade.

Es probable que el mito sobre la confusión de idiomas sea resultado de investigaciones antiguas, basadas en estudios pocos fiables. Según éstos, aprender dos idiomas a corta edad sitúa a un niño en desventaja respecto a los que aprenden sólo uno. Estos estudios hicieron que los educadores alentasen a los padres a abandonar su lengua materna y a enfatizar el uso del inglés.

Nuevas investigaciones demuestran que, por el contrario, ser bilingüe tiene muchas ventajas, incluyendo la capacidad para pensar de forma más flexible. Por ejemplo, las personas bilingües tienen dos o más palabras para cada concepto, lo cual les proporciona más de una manera de resolver problemas.

Criar a un niño bilingüe provoca retrasos en el habla

Es cierto que algunos niños bilingües suelen tardar un poquito más en empezar a hablar que aquellos criados en sólo un idioma. El retraso, sin embargo, es temporal y, según los expertos, esto ni siquiera es una regla general.

Desafortunadamente, cuando los padres tienen inquietudes acerca del desarrollo del habla de sus hijos bilingües, muchas veces se les aconseja erróneamente que usen sólo un idioma porque en el pasado el bilingüismo era considerado el causante de los problemas de desarrollo del habla.

"Las investigaciones indican que el bilingüismo no causa retrasos en el desarrollo del habla ni la adquisición de lenguaje", informa Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., presidente de Bilinguistics, una compañía que ofrece productos y servicios destinados a apoyar el aprendizaje bilingüe en Austin, Texas.

Aunque tu hijo haya sido diagnosticado con algún tipo de retraso en el habla, criarlo de forma bilingüe no aumentará ni disminuirá dicho retraso.

"Varios estudios demuestran que los niños con retrasos en el lenguaje que crecen en ambientes bilingües adquieren el lenguaje a la misma velocidad que aquellos que lo hacen en un idioma", afirma Kester.

Los niños bilingües terminan mezclando los dos idiomas

Mezclar idiomas es inevitable e inofensivo. Pero para quienes no están familiarizados con el bilingüismo, esto confirma que un niño bilingüe no puede distinguir bien sus idiomas. La mayoría de los niños bilingües mezclan los dos idiomas hasta que van aprendiendo a distinguir uno del otro.

También mezclan sus idiomas porque uno de ellos tiene mayor influencia que el otro y eso provoca una falta de vocabulario en el idioma minoritario.

Los expertos coinciden en que mezclar dos idiomas es algo temporal y desaparece a medida que el vocabulario de un niño se va desarrollando en ambos idiomas.

En realidad, personas bilingües de todas las edades mezclan sus idiomas, lo cual es un efecto conocido como intercambio de códigos. Un ejemplo perfecto es el uso generalizado del Spanglish (la mezcla del inglés y el español) por los latinos en Estados Unidos.

"A veces lo hacen porque no saben la palabra que necesitan en el idioma en el que están hablando", dice Pearson. "Algunas personas mezclan los idiomas a propósito porque les gusta más la palabra o la frase en el otro idioma."

Recuerda que los niños copian lo que ven y escuchan, por lo que si tu hijo vive en un ambiente donde mezclar los idiomas es la regla, esperar lo contrario sería poco realista.

Es demasiado tarde para criar a tu hijo bilingüe

Nunca es demasiado tarde. "Aprender un segundo idioma es más fácil para los niños menores de 10 años, y aún más fácil para los menores de 5, comparado con el esfuerzo que requiere para un adulto, que es mucho mayor", asegura Pearson.

El periodo óptimo, según los expertos, parece situarse entre el nacimiento y los 3 años, justamente cuando un niño está aprendiendo su primer lengua.

Después, el mejor momento es de 2 a 7 años de edad porque todavía son capaces de procesar varios idiomas en senderos paralelos. Esto quiere decir que desarrollan un segundo sistema de lenguaje junto al primero, por lo que pueden aprender a hablar ambos idiomas como si cada uno de ellos fuese su lengua materna.

Si tu hijo es mayor de 7 años y has pensando en criarlo como bilingüe, todavía estás a tiempo de hacerlo. El tercer periodo para aprender un segundo idioma es antes de la pubertad, entre los 10 y los 13 años de edad. Después de la pubertad, los estudios demuestran que los idiomas nuevos se almacenan en una zona diferente del cerebro, por lo que los niños tienen que traducir o usar su lengua materna como sendero hacia ese nuevo idioma.

"Se habla tanto de un periodo especial de oportunidad para que un niño pequeño aprenda dos idiomas que puede ser desalentador para un niño más grande", explica Pearson. "Es cierto que es más fácil empezar pronto, pero no es un periodo crítico porque se puede aprender un segundo idioma aun después que termine ese periodo".

Los niños son como esponjas y serán bilingües sin esfuerzo y en poco tiempo

Aunque es más fácil que los niños aprendan un nuevo idioma cuanto más temprano estén expuestos al mismo, esto no sucede por osmosis. Es poco realista esperar que tu hijo aprenda español sentándolo frente a la tele para que vea un episodio de Dora la Exploradora tras otro.

No tiene que convertirse en una tarea, pero sí debe existir algún tipo de estructura y mucha perseverancia en lo se refiere a enseñar un segundo idioma a tus hijos, ya sea a través de conversaciones diarias o de enseñanza formal. La idea es ayudarles a aprender el idioma de forma eficaz e interesante, con estrategias relacionadas con el día a día.

Roxana A. Soto es periodista y cofundadora del sitio SpanglishBaby.com, para padres que deciden criar a sus hijos bilingües.

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los 5 mitos más comunes de criar niños bilingües

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Los 5 mitos más comunes de criar niños bilingües

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Por Roxana Soto Existen muchos mitos acerca de criar a un hijo bilingüe. Muchos padres de familia se desaniman porque les dicen que aprender dos idiomas puede confundir a sus hijos y causar retrasos en el habla, o que es demasiado tarde para empezar.

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Las personas bilingües se desempeñan mejor en la vida. Este neurocientífico explica por qué

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Sigman afirma que los bebés que crecen bilingües tienen funciones cerebrales superiores a las de los niños monolingües, porque tienen un mejor "control cognitivo".

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no

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SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class journal research

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Subscription and open access journals from SAGE Publishing, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

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Interview conducted by François Grosjean.

One of the most intriguing phenomena in bilingualism is how infants who acquire two or more languages from birth manage to discriminate and separate their languages. They have to distinguish and differentiate the spoken input they perceive into distinct languages. How do they do it, we keep asking ourselves. Professor Janet Werker of the University of British Columbia is known the world over for her work on the perception of speech by bilingual infants. She has been one of the pioneers of research on language discrimination and separation, among other domains, and she has very kindly accepted to answer a few of our questions.
In your publications, you write that bilingual infants are more sensitive to the perceptual details of languages than monolingual infants. Can you explain what you mean?
Bilingual infants seem to listen more closely to the actual acoustics of speech sounds, hearing - for example - differences in the strength of the puff of air in one "P" vs. another (put your fingers in front of your mouth when you say "pat" and you'll know what I mean). They also seem to be more sensitive to visual differences when watching talking faces, and notice, for example, the precise way the mouth or other facial muscles move when a word is being produced.
You also state that bilingual infants are better able to track multiple cues simultaneously. Can you give an example?
The languages of the world have different basic grammars which results in different word orders. In English there are prepositions (e.g. from Vancouver) whereas in Japanese there are post-positions (e.g. Tokyo kara). Also, in English determiners come before nouns (e.g. the house) whereas in Japanese, it is the opposite. Words such as prepositions ( from) and determiners ( the) are very common, but are lower in pitch and/or shorter in duration than words like nouns. Monolingual learning infants can use word frequency in a made-up language to figure out the grammar. Bilingual infants can use word frequency PLUS pitch and/or duration!
Languages have phonetic categories with specificities, e.g. some languages have short and long vowels, some have nasal vowels, etc. How does this internal structure help bilingual infants separate their languages?
Some studies suggest that bilingual infants are able to use the existence of different kinds of phonemes to help situate the speech they are hearing within one or another of their native languages. While more work is needed to ensure that this is the case, it seems as if bilingual Japanese-English infants can listen for Japanese grammar and words when they hear, for example, both long and short vowels in speech, but listen for English grammar and English words when they hear clear "r" and "l" sounds in the speech of someone talking to them.
Languages also have allowable sequences of phonemes (sounds) which don't occur in other languages. Can this also help bilingual infants separate their languages and can you give an example?
There is evidence from our colleagues in Spain, Nuria Sebastian-Galles and Laura Bosch, that bilingual Spanish-Catalan infants are sensitive to the allowable sequences of sounds (phonotactics) in their two languages. Catalan allows consonant clusters at the ends of words, whereas Spanish doesn't. Infants were tested on their preference for lists of words that either did or did not contain consonant clusters. Preference was measured by examining looking time to a display while the words were heard. While the monolingual infants listened longer to words that could be in their native language, the bilingual learning infants showed more mixed preferences, driven by the language they were hearing most at home. As in the example above with phonemes, sensitivity to phonotactics could also help bilinguals separate their two languages.
Bilingual infants are attuned to the prosody (e.g. the rhythm) of their languages. How does this help?
Sensitivity to the rhythm of the two languages helps in two ways. First, it can help bilingual infants keep their two languages apart while simultaneously learning each (but without confusing it with the other). In addition, rhythm correlates with word order, so bilingual infants could use rhythm to help flag where nouns, verbs, prepositions, determiners, etc., might be in the speech they are hearing.
Infants often look intensely at those who speak to them and pick up on visual cues. Do bilingual infants use this in any way?
All of us can tell, sometimes, whether someone talking is speaking our native language or not just by watching their facial movements. As noted above, bilingual infants seem to watch talking faces more closely than do monolingual infants, and hence may use the visual cues in talking faces to provide another cue as to which language is being spoken. Studies in other laboratories show that bilingual infants look more at the mouth than do monolingual infants (who look mostly at the eyes, particularly by 10 months of age), providing even more information that they are tracking 'phonetic' properties in facial movements (see here for a post on this topic). In current work we are also exploring the hypothesis that bilingual infants who grow up in bi-ethnic homes might be able to use ethnicity in the face as a cue to the language that will be spoken.
In a recent paper with your Padmapriya Kandhadai and D. Kyle Danielson you state that bilingual infants may be able to use cultural information in their surroundings to track the properties of each language. What do you mean exactly?
As in the example above with faces of different races, we suggest that bilingual/bicultural infants may be able to use other aspects of their two cultures to keep their languages apart, or to prime them to expect one or the other of their two languages. There is work with bilingual Mandarin-English adults that shows that seeing an iconic image from one culture, e.g. a picture of the Great Wall, speeds up access to Chinese words and slows down, or mixes up, access to English words.
Some bilingual infants get more input in one language than in the other, hence are dominant in that language. What impact does this have in their task of differentiating languages?
This is still an open question, but the research to date would suggest that as long as some threshold level of input is used in each language, the two languages will still be kept distinct.
What current questions concerning language differentiation are of particular interest?
One exciting question that comes from the work of Krista Byers-Heinlein at Concordia University in Montreal, is how language mixing effects language differentiation. Many bilingual children grow up with a lot of intermingled language input (see here) but they still separate their languages. Whether mixing has an impact on this process is still not well understood.

For a full list of "Life as a bilingual" blog posts by content area, see here.

Photo of a young mom with baby from Shutterstock.

References

Werker, J. F. & Byers-Heinlein, K. (2008). Bilingualism in infancy: First steps in perception and comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(4), 144-151.

Kandhadai, P., Danielson, D. K. & Werker, J. F. (2014). Culture as a binder for bilingual acquisition. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 3, 24-27.

François Grosjean's website.

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How do Bilingual Infants Separate their Languages?

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Infants who acquire two or more languages from birth have to distinguish and differentiate the spoken input they receive into distinct languages. Professor Janet Werker who has been at the forefront of research on this topic tells us how they do it.

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Post written by Aneta Pavlenko.

Morality is usually seen as our code of conduct, ethics, and ability to distinguish between good and proper behaviors, and actions that are intrinsically wrong, harmful and inappropriate. In the past few years, the interaction between morality and language has become one of the hottest areas in research on bilingualism (for discussion of earlier studies, see here). A recent outcome of this research is a sensational finding by Albert Costa and his coauthors, eagerly picked up by popular media: "Your morals depend on your language". But what does this really mean?

In Experiment 1, Costa and his team presented 317 participants with a task where they had to imagine themselves standing on a footbridge overlooking a train track, and where an on-coming train was about to kill five people. The only way to save them was to push a heavy man off the footbridge in front of the train. The question was: Would they sacrifice one to save five? The answers to this dilemma were collected, in both the first and second language, from English-Spanish, English-French, Korean-English, and Spanish- or English-Hebrew bilinguals, all of whom had learned their second language (L2) later in life. The analysis revealed that across all populations more participants selected the utilitarian solution (kill one to save five) in the foreign language.

In Experiment 2, the researchers added a modified version of the same task, where one can save five people by switching the train-this time a trolley-to another track, where it would only kill one person. Responses were collected from Spanish-speaking students of English and English-speaking students of Spanish. The data showed that the wording of the task does make a difference. On the train task the participants were more likely to pick the utilitarian solution in their foreign language. In contrast, on the less emotional trolley task, the utilitarian solution was chosen equally frequently in both languages. These results led the authors to conclude that "people's moral judgments and decisions depend on the nativeness of the language in which a dilemma is presented, becoming more utilitarian in a foreign language", this due to reduced emotional arousal.

Quickly dubbed "the foreign language effect", the finding has been replicated in other studies using the same or similar tasks. Thus, Heather Cipoletti and her team analyzed responses from 160 English-Spanish bilinguals to the train and trolley dilemmas and found that their participants also picked the utilitarian solution (push the person off the bridge) more frequently in the foreign language. In turn, Janet Geipel and her coauthors examined the judgments of German and Italian learners of English on scenarios involving social norm violations that ranged from white lies to consensual incest between brother and sister. They found that all of the scenarios were judged less harshly in the foreign language and explained these results through "reduced activation of social and moral norms".

These findings have been presented by Albert Costa and his team, as well as the media, as "relevant to hundreds of millions of individuals on a daily basis", and particularly important for multilingual organizations, such as the European Union, immigrants making decisions in the second language context, and jury members in multilingual trials. Following this line of thought, it is only a matter of time before a creative lawyer decides to use "the foreign language effect" as the new Twinkie defense: the defendant did not know that what they did was morally wrong because the foreign language environment reduced their sensitivity and access to social and moral norms. The question is whether the judges and juries would buy it and if they won't, should we?

To begin with, most, if not all, of the studies to date have focused on foreign language learners. These participants display the clearest difference between affective processing in the first and second language, yet their histories of language learning and use differentiate them from immigrants and other bi-and multilinguals who live and work in more than one language and have affective ties to the L2. Furthermore, bilinguals rarely constrain themselves to a single language, moreover a second language. Personal decision-making usually relies on inner speech in the first language or the dominant language.

What the findings to date show is a framing effect, well-familiar in studies with bilinguals, where different languages trigger different answers, reactions and associations. It is less clear how easily we can extrapolate from responses given to hypotheticals in artificial tasks to decision-making in high stakes situations. We all know that decision-making in real life involves a multitude of contextual factors absent under laboratory conditions. As a consequence, there is only one way to understand whether language choice affects moral judgments in everyday life - and if so, how and when - and that is to study decision-making in everyday life.

For a full list of "Life as a bilingual" blog posts by content area, see here.

Photo of a woman thinking from Wikimedia Commons.

References

Cipolletti, H., McFarlane, S., & C. Weisglass (2016) The moral foreign-language effect. Philosophical Psychology, 29 (1), 23-40.

Costa, A., Foucart, A., Hayakawa, S., Aparici, M., Apesteguia, J., Heafner, J., & B. Keysar (2014) Your morals depend on language. PLoS ONE 9(4): e94842. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0094842.

Geipel, J., Hadjichristidis, C., & L. Surian (2015) How foreign language shapes moral judgment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 59, 8-17.

Aneta Pavlenko's website.

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Post written by Aneta Pavlenko. Morality is usually seen as our code of conduct, ethics, and ability to distinguish between good and proper behaviors, and actions that are intrinsically wrong, harmful and inappropriate. In the past few years, the interaction between morality and language has become one of the hottest areas in research on bilingualism (for discussion of earlier studies, see here).

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One of the longest-lasting myths concerning bilingualism is that children with developmental disabilities should not become bilingual, or if they already are using a minority language in the home, should stop using it. Thanks to new research in the field, this view is slowly being replaced by one that states that these children can indeed become bilingual, or remain bilingual. A 2016 special issue of the Journal of Communication Disorders presents research that examines bilingual access and participation for children with developmental disabilities, conducted by an international team of researchers. The principal investigator was Elizabeth Kay-Raining Bird of Dalhousie University in Canada. She kindly agreed to answer some of our questions and we wish to thank her wholeheartedly.
In your review of the field with Fred Genesee and Ludo Verhoeven, you concentrate on three groups of children with developmental disabilities. Which are they?
The three groups we focused upon were children with Specific (or Primary) Language Impairment (SLI), Down syndrome (DS), or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), because these are the ones who have been studied to any real degree with the emphasis having been put on bilingual children with SLI. Almost no research exists on bilingualism in other populations of children with developmental disabilities such as children with cerebral palsy or intellectual disabilities of other etiologies.
Why has there been such opposition to bilingualism for children with developmental disabilities over the years?
A prevalent fear, expressed by families and professionals alike, is that learning one language is already difficult for these children, therefore learning two or more languages would be just too difficult. Exposing a child with developmental disabilities to two languages, the argument goes, might result in no language being learned well. This is a myth and it has been debunked through studies of typically developing children and children from our three groups. Children with developmental disabilities, regardless of diagnosis, can and do become bilingual but, unfortunately, many professionals and families are not aware of these research findings.

Since we know many children with developmental disabilities need or want to be bilingual, and that many are indeed bilingual, the real issue is not whether they should become bilingual, but how to best support them in their life with two or more languages.
Are simultaneous bilinguals with developmental disabilities any different from similarly affected monolingual peers?
All the available evidence says no, there are no differences in the language skills of children with developmental disabilities and their similarly affected monolingual peers, as long as bilinguals are compared to monolinguals in an appropriate way. By appropriate I mean that if a simultaneous bilingual child with a developmental disability has relatively equal abilities in both languages, then research shows their ability in each language does not differ from that of monolingual similarly affected peers.

However, many simultaneous bilingual children do not have equal abilities in both their languages because they hear and use one language more often than the other. In that case, their stronger language should be the language that is compared to that of monolingual children. When that happens, they are no different from their similarly affected peers
How do sequential bilinguals with disorders fare?
They fare somewhat differently. As you know, these children have one language they are exposed to from birth and a second language they begin to learn somewhat later. Often, their first exposure to a second language occurs when they enter school and they are taught in this second (majority) language. Research shows that children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) will often take a number of years to "catch up" to monolinguals who are similarly affected in their second language skills. Research on typically developing children has reported similar lags in second language development. This is not surprising-learning a second language takes time.

The story for children with Down Syndrome (DS) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is not clear, but currently the evidence shows no detrimental effects of sequential bilingualism if you take into account both languages of the bilingual child when making comparisons.
Why is it so crucial not to abandon a home language in favor of the majority language?
The impact of abandoning a home language has been studied by interviewing parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Many families in these studies were advised to speak only the majority language to their children even though the parent was not fluent in it. Parents often talked about feeling less comfortable and less natural interacting with their child, and some reported that they actually avoided talking to him or her because of their discomfort. This has a detrimental effect on the child's language development and is particularly problematic for children who have difficulty with communication, such as those with ASD.

Even if parents reported feeling comfortable speaking the majority language to their child with ASD, they expressed feelings of sadness and guilt at not passing their language (and culture) on to their children. When the majority language was the only language of input to a child with ASD in the home, other family members continued to use the home language(s), which effectively isolated the child with ASD from various family conversations.
How important is everyday exposure to both languages, in particular the weaker one, in children with developmental disabilities?
By definition, children with developmental disabilities have difficulty learning, and this includes learning language. To become and stay bilingual, children with developmental disabilities, just like typically developing children, need to be exposed to and use both their languages on a frequent and on-going basis. It has been shown that frequent input in a language is highly and positively related to proficiency in that language. This is particularly true for the weaker language.

Quantity is not all that is needed, however, as we saw in the interviews of parents with ASD; quality is also important. Children with developmental disabilities, because of their language-learning difficulties, need to experience both their languages in functional interactive contexts designed to facilitate their language learning.
Do children with developmental disabilities have equal access to bilingual programs (immersion, dual language) and, if not, what should be done?
No, they do not have equal access to bilingual programs and to services as shown in our survey in six sites and four countries. Our respondents reported that both sequential and simultaneous bilinguals with disabilities were taught only in the majority language and were assessed and treated only in that language more often than they should be. In general, the more severe the disability, the less likely children with developmental disabilities have access to bilingual supports and services.

Our team also interviewed practitioners and administrators to identify barriers that prevent children with developmental disabilities from accessing and/or participating fully in bilingual services and supports. We found both systemic barriers (e.g. limits in funding, service availability varying by geographic location, etc.) and barriers specific to children with developmental disabilities such as a tendency to prioritize special education services over bilingual services, a lack of integration of special education and bilingual services, and so on.
What are some of the suggestions that come out of your research project?
We feel that a number of changes should be made: All those involved with children with developmental disabilities need to know that these children can and do become bilingual; their families should be encouraged to enroll them in bilingual programs and services available to other children; special education and bilingual education programs and services should be integrated; staff who work with them should be provided with training and supports, and so on.
What are your hopes for the future?
My hope is that our societies will value and support people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. After all, we know a lot about how we can help children become bilingual and remain bilingual and we also know a lot about how to appropriately assess and treat bilingual children with developmental disabilities. I hope that in the future we will continue to study these issues and make bilingual programs accessible to, and supportive of, the needs of children of all ability levels.
For a full list of "Life as a bilingual" blog posts by content area, click here.

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Supporting Bilingual Children With Special Education Needs

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One of the longest-lasting myths concerning bilingualism is that children with developmental disabilities should not become bilingual, or if they already are using a minority language in the home, should stop using it. Thanks to new research in the field, this view is slowly being replaced by one that states that these children can indeed become bilingual, or remain bilingual.

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Post written by Aneta Pavlenko.

Can scientists look at our brains and predict whether some of us will make more successful language learners than others? A recent study published by the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that they can. To get a peek inside the bilingual brain, Xiaoqian Chai and associates at McGill University use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a neuroimaging procedure that measures changes in blood oxygenation level as a way to understand brain activity (higher levels of oxygenated haemoglobins mean more activity). This procedure is helping them to study connections between different brain areas that talk to each other in the process of second language (L2) learning and use.

To see if individual differences in brain connectivity can predict L2 learning success, the researchers recruited 15 English-speaking students who arrived in Montreal from other Canadian provinces, as well as from Australia, the UK, and the USA, and who did not know much French. fMRI was used to measure connectivity in two brain areas: the left frontal region linked to verbal fluency and the left ventral temporal-occipital cortex, aka the visual word form area, where signs on the page are converted into phonemes and words. To test participants' verbal and reading fluency, the researchers asked them to speak for 2 minutes and to read passages out loud in both languages.

Then the students took an intensive French immersion course that focused on reading and conversational competence required for higher-level communication and that lasted 12 weeks (6 hrs a day, 5 days a week). After the course ended, the researchers once again tested verbal fluency, asking participants again to speak for 2 minutes in French and English. The total number of unique words employed correctly was used as a measure of verbal fluency (they called this lexical retrieval). They also asked the students to read passages again and used the number of words per minute as a measure of reading fluency. The analysis of pre- and post-immersion L1 English performance revealed no differences in lexical retrieval or reading speed. In L2 French, on the other hand, the students made significant improvement, both in the number of unique words produced and in reading speed.

The researchers then correlated the L2 performance measures with resting-state brain connectivity measured before the French course and found two interesting patterns. Individuals with stronger connectivity between the left frontal region and the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (STG) showed greater improvement in the number of unique words produced (lexical retrieval) in L2 French, while individuals with stronger connectivity between the visual word form area and left middle STG showed greater improvement in reading speed in L2 French.

These findings were immediately reported by the media as a claim that some brains are better wired for language learning than others. In fact, things are not as simple, as the authors showed in another study that came out in the same journal a week later. In this study, they used fMRI once again to compare resting-state brain connectivity in a different area of the brain - the inferior frontal gyrus - and in a different group of participants. This time, the participants were 16 French-English simultaneous bilinguals, and 18 sequential bilinguals, the latter having learned their L2, either French or English, after the age of 5. The results revealed that in simultaneous bilinguals the connectivity between the brain hemispheres is greater than in sequential bilinguals, who appear to rely more on the left hemisphere.

These findings raise an intriguing possibility that connectivity may be malleable, at least in some brain areas, and the very experience of learning another language can change our internal wiring making us better learners. To confirm this hypothesis, neuroscientists will need to conduct longitudinal studies, following a group of learners as they go about learning a language until they become bilingual, so let's stay tuned.

For a full list of "Life as a bilingual" blog posts by content area, see here.

Photo of a magnetic resonance image (MRI) of the brain from Shutterstock.

References

Berken, J., Chai, X., Chen, J.-K., Gracco, V., & D. Klein (2016) Effects of early and late bilingualism on resting-state functional connectivity. The Journal of Neuroscience, January 27, 2016, 36, 4, 1165-1172.

Chai, X., Berken, J., Barbeau, E., Soles, J., Callahan, M., Chen, J.-K., & D. Klein (2016) Intrinsic functional connectivity in the adult brain and success in second-language learning. The Journal of Neuroscience, January 20, 2016, 36, 3, 755-761.

Aneta Pavlenko's website.

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Post written by Aneta Pavlenko. Can scientists look at our brains and predict whether some of us will make more successful language learners than others? A recent study published by the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that they can.

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Post written by François Grosjean.
Note: This post is not about the educational approaches as such used with Deaf children - the author has always defended a bimodal approach - but about whether bilingualism, in two oral languages, or in an oral language and a sign language, has a negative impact on the acquisition of the majority language in children with hearing loss.
Some 1 to 3 children per 1000 suffer from hearing loss, many of whom are bilingual. Knowing and using two or more languages is a perfectly natural phenomenon but it is often perceived negatively by some clinicians and educators when it involves children with hearing loss. They state that bilingualism will delay the acquisition of the majority language, burden the child unduly, dilute his/her linguistic resources, even create language confusion. They therefore encourage parents to use just one language, the majority language, and to give up, or not start using, a second language, most often the minority language.

The counter arguments of those who defend bilingualism, and the minority language in particular, are many: parents and children can communicate in the home language (some minority language parents don't speak the majority language well), the bond between parents and children are strengthened, as are those with the local community, there are long-term benefits to being bilingual, etc. Their position is now strengthened by recent studies that show that being bilingual is not detrimental to children with hearing loss. We will cover three in what follows.

In a first study, Ferenc Bunta of the University of Houston and his colleagues compared the English language skills of two groups of young children with hearing loss: English-Spanish bilingual children, and English-speaking monolinguals. All children had received their cochlear implants and/or hearing aids before the age of 5 and all were given instruction and therapy at the Center for Hearing and Speech in Houston. The bilingual children also received auditory-based therapy in Spanish and their parents were given linguistic goals and strategies so that they could implement them at home in their daily activities in Spanish.

The children were given a well-known language test, the Preschool Language Scales (PLS-4), which assesses the developing child's ability to understand and use spoken language. The bilingual children were also given a Spanish version of the test. The results were clear: the English scores of the bilingual children were not significantly different from those of their monolingual peers. In addition, no difference was found between the English and Spanish results obtained by the bilinguals. The authors concluded that dual-language use is not detrimental to overall speech and language development in bilingual children with hearing loss. In their words, "Our data provide evidence that children and their families should not abandon using their home language; rather, they can and should encourage speech and language development in both languages if they choose to do so."

In a second study, published three years later, Ferenc Bunta and his colleagues wanted to find out if the bilingual children who were given support in their two languages did better than other bilingual children, also with hearing loss, who only received support in English. They matched the children on a range of demographic and socio-economic variables and gave them the English version of the Preschool Language Scale test. What they found was that the bilingual children with dual-support obtained similar results as their English-only peers on auditory comprehension but outperformed them on the overall measure as well as expressive communication. They concluded that encouraging home language use and providing treatment support in the first language may help develop both English and the home language.

The studies mentioned so far have dealt with bilingualism in children who have two oral languages. What about bimodal bilinguals, that is children who are brought up with a sign language, such as American Sign Language, and with a spoken, majority, language, in this case English? Here too some health professionals have expressed reserve, if not outright rejection, of a bilingual approach for children with cochlear implants and/or hearing aids despite everything that sign language brings to the child and to his caretakers. For example, it can be used to communicate early on while the oral language is being acquired-a difficult and lengthy process in Deaf children-, it helps them develop their cognitive abilities and acquire knowledge of the world, and it allows for normal parent-child bonding which otherwise can be very difficult. An earlier post reviews the many benefits of bimodal bilingualism for these children (see here).

Elizabeth Fitzpatrick, at the University of Ottawa, and her colleagues have just published a systematic review of the effectiveness of early sign and oral language intervention compared to oral intervention only. They took eleven studies published in the last twenty years that had between 13 and 90 participants each, most of them with severe to profound deafness. Their conclusion was clear: they found no evidence that adding sign language interfered with spoken language development, contrary to what some have maintained for years.

Thus, in the span of three years, researchers who have examined two very different approaches used with children with hearing loss-the oral approach and the manual approach-have come to similar conclusions. Bilingualism does not hinder or delay the development of the majority language. On the contrary, it brings many benefits to both the child and to his/her caretakers!

For a full list of "Life as a bilingual" blog posts by content area, see here.

Photo from Shutterstock.

References

Bunta, Ferenc & Douglas, Michael (2013). The effects of dual-language support on the language skills of bilingual children with hearing loss who use listening devices relative to their monolingual peers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 44, 281-290.

Bunta, Ferenc, Douglas, Michael, Dickson, Hanna, Cantu, Amy, Wickesberg, Jennifer & Gifford, René H. (2016). Dual language versus English-only support for bilingual children with hearing loss who use cochlear implants and hearing aids. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders. Advance online publication. doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12223

Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth M., Hamel, Candyce, Stevens, Adrienne, et al. (2016). Sign language and spoken language for children with hearing loss: A systematic review. Pediatrics, 137(1): e20151974.

Grosjean, François (2000). The right of the deaf child to grow up bilingual. WFD News, 13(1), 14-15.

François Grosjean's website.

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Post written by François Grosjean. Note: This post is not about the educational approaches as such used with Deaf children - the author has always defended a bimodal approach - but about whether bilingualism, in two oral languages, or in an oral language and a sign language, has a negative impact on the acquisition of the majority language in children with hearing loss.

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Life as a Bilingual: The reality of living with two (or more) languages, by Francois Grosjean, Ph.D., and Aneta Pavlenko, Ph.D.

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Bilinguals get all the perks. Better job prospects, a cognitive boost and even protection against dementia. Now new research shows that they can also view the world in different ways depending on the specific language they are operating in.

The past 15 years have witnessed an overwhelming amount of research on the bilingual mind, with the majority of the evidence pointing to the tangible advantages of using more than one language. Going back and forth between languages appears to be a kind of brain training, pushing your brain to be flexible.

Just as regular exercise gives your body some biological benefits, mentally controlling two or more languages gives your brain cognitive benefits. This mental flexibility pays big dividends especially later in life: the typical signs of cognitive ageing occur later in bilinguals - and the onset of age-related degenerative disorders such as dementia or Alzheimer's are delayed in bilinguals by up to five years.

Germans know where they're going

In research we recently published in Psychological Science, we studied German-English bilinguals and monolinguals to find out how different language patterns affected how they reacted in experiments.

We showed German-English bilinguals video clips of events with a motion in them, such as a woman walking towards a car or a man cycling towards the supermarket and then asked them to describe the scenes.

When you give a scene like that to a monolingual German speaker they will tend to describe the action but also the goal of the action. So they would tend to say "A woman walks towards her car" or "a man cycles towards the supermarket". English monolingual speakers would simply describe those scenes as "A woman is walking" or "a man is cycling", without mentioning the goal of the action.

The worldview assumed by German speakers is a holistic one - they tend to look at the event as a whole - whereas English speakers tend to zoom in on the event and focus only on the action.

The linguistic basis of this tendency appears to be rooted in the way different grammatical tool kits situated actions in time. English requires its speakers to grammatically mark events that are ongoing, by obligatorily applying the -ing morpheme: "I am playing the piano and I cannot come to the phone" or "I was playing the piano when the phone rang". German doesn't have this feature.

Research with second language users shows a relationship between linguistic proficiency in such grammatical constructions and the frequency with which speakers mention the goals of events.

In our study we also found that these cross-linguistic differences extend beyond language usage itself, to nonverbal categorisation of events. We asked English and German monolinguals to watch a series of video clips that showed people walking, biking, running, or driving. In each set of three videos, we asked subjects to decide whether a scene with an ambiguous goal (a woman walks down a road toward a parked car) was more similar to a clearly goal-oriented scene (a woman walks into a building) or a scene with no goal (a woman walks down a country lane).

German monolinguals matched ambiguous scenes with goal-oriented scenes more frequently than English monolinguals did. This difference mirrors the one found for language usage: German speakers are more likely to focus on possible outcomes of people's actions, but English speakers pay more attention to the action itself.

Switch languages, change perspective

When it came to bilingual speakers, they seemed to switch between these perspectives based on the language context they were given the task in. We found that Germans fluent in English were just as goal-focused as any other native speaker when tested in German in their home country. But a similar group of German-English bilinguals tested in English in the United Kingdom were just as action-focused as native English speakers.

In another group of German-English bilinguals, we kept one language in the forefront of their minds during the video-matching task by making participants repeat strings of numbers out loud in either English or German. Distracting one language seemed to automatically bring the influence of the other language to the fore.

When we "blocked" English, the bilinguals acted like typical Germans and saw ambiguous videos as more goal-oriented. With German blocked, bilingual subjects acted like English speakers and matched ambiguous and open-ended scenes. When we surprised subjects by switching the language of the distracting numbers halfway through the experiment, the subjects' focus on goals versus process switched right along with it.

These findings are in line with other research showing distinct behaviour in bilinguals depending on the language of operation. Israeli Arabs are more likely to associate Arab names such as Ahmed and Samir with positive words in an Arabic language context than in a Hebrew one, for example.

People self-report that they feel like a different person when using their different languages and that expressing certain emotions carries different emotional resonance depending on the language they are using.

When judging risk, bilinguals also tend to make more rational economic decisions in a second language. In contrast to one's first language, it tends to lack the deep-seated, misleading affective biases that unduly influence how risks and benefits are perceived. So the language you speak in really can affect the way you think.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
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How the language you speak changes your view of the world

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Bilinguals get all the perks. Better job prospects, a cognitive boost and even protection against dementia. Now new research shows that they can also view the world in different ways depending on the specific language they are operating in.

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Want a new job?

Wish you had better health?

Want a more fulfilling personal life?
Learn a second language!
When discussing the benefits of learning a foreign language, most people think of the straightforward perks right away. You know, that it's useful to be able to ask where the bathroom is when you visit Beijing, or to be able to ask for directions when you get lost in Barcelona.

But did you know that the benefits of being bilingual go much deeper than that?

Recent research on bilingualism has found that speaking another language can improve your life in many ways. Being bilingual can provide new career opportunities, improve your personal life and even lead to better health.

Here's a review of what the current research tells us about the benefits of knowing a foreign language.

Workplace Benefits of Being Bilingual

Knowing more than one language can give you a big boost professionally, and in today's economy, that's something everyone can use.

1. Bilingualism can improve your competitiveness in the job market.

Knowing a second language makes your resume stand out and can boost you to the top of the interview list with potential employers.

Companies today serve increasingly diverse, multilingual populations at home and abroad. Managers know that multilingual consumers are a huge commercial force and represent a significant opportunity for future business. A recent report goes as far as saying that "marketers and advertisers who grasp and activate the multicultural edge will be poised to connect with rising super consumers."

Many companies have international offices, sell their products abroad and have production facilities in other countries. These companies want to hire versatile employees who can speak other languages and navigate different cultural expectations. So once you've got a second language under your belt, you might be fighting off job offers!

Even knowing just a few words of a foreign language can be helpful. Taylor Diaz-Rogers, a student at Florida International University, found this out when she interviewed for an internship at the marketing company Optimum7.

According to the FIU career services department website, Diaz-Rogers said, "The COO of Optimum7, who was at the fair and with whom I got the chance to speak to, was from Turkey... I had visited his country 5 years ago and still knew a few words in Turkish. Because of that, we were able to build a good rapport."

It was partially because of her knowledge of Turkish that Diaz-Rogers was offered an internship at the company!

2. Knowing a second language can open up new career opportunities.

Foreign language skills can be particularly beneficial if you're interested in changing careers to a new and growing field.

Jobs as translators and interpreters are in the top 15 fastest-growing occupations in the United States, with nearly 25,000 translation and interpretation jobs expected to become available by 2020. This estimate does not even include jobs in the military, which actively recruits people with a variety of language skills. (They then use the DLIFLC GLOSS to teach languages to recruits-which is surprisingly available to the public, so you can use it to learn a language too!)

Other fast-growing fields like travel and tourism, healthcare and national security need employees with bilingual language skills and the ability to work across cultures. Fields such as journalism, education and international development are always in search of bilingual employees. And knowing a second language can give you an an edge if you want to apply for the Peace Corps or become a Foreign Service Officer.

3. Bilinguals can earn more money.

The financial returns of learning a foreign language vary by language and job, but they can add up to a lot. Salary.com found that jobs with pay differentials based on bilingualism usually pay 5-20% more per hour for bilingual employees.

MIT economist Albert Saiz discovered that college graduates who speak two languages make an average of 2% more than those who do not. This can add up to a lot over time, as an article in The Economistpoints out. At retirement, the extra earnings could mean an additional $67,000 in your retirement account!

Life Improvements Gained by Being Bilingual

Aside from improving your career prospects, speaking another language is just plain fun, and can add great value to your personal life.

4. Being bilingual opens up social and cultural opportunities.

Speaking another languages lets you interact with different people and understand the nuances of another culture. This means you might have more opportunities to make friends, explore different hobbies and better understand your favorite foreign music, film and literature.

Travel can also be cheaper and more rewarding when you speak the language of the country you're visiting. You won't be limited to staying in expensive foreigner hotels, eating at restaurants where the staff speaks English or traveling with a tour group.

Instead, you can find your own way and experience the country the way a local would. You might enjoy cheaper access to museums because you don't have to pay for a foreign-language guide, and you will certainly have more opportunities to meet people, engage in conversation and learn about the culture.

5. Speaking another language gives you a new perspective.

Even if you don't travel abroad, becoming bilingual can help you see the world in a different way and understand yourself better.

Research has found that bilinguals literally see the world differently. People who regularly speak a second language perceive differences in color variations that are not recognized by monolinguals! How's that for a new perspective?

Many people who speak more than one language also report feeling "like a different person" when they speak the other language. Research by a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has found that bilinguals emphasize different character traits depending on which language they are speaking. The professor interviewed Parisian adults who were fluent in French and Portuguese and found that they acted differently when speaking one language or the other. For example, one girl sounded like an "angry, hip suburbanite" in French and a "frustrated, but patient, well-mannered bank customer" in Portuguese.

Another study found significant levels of "frame-shifting," or changes in self perception, among bilingual participants. Researchers interviewed Hispanic women who were fluent in Spanish and English and found that many classified themselves as more assertive when they spoke Spanish. The women also had different perceptions of the same advertisements when they saw them in English and in Spanish.

So if you want to understand yourself better, learning another language might be the key!

Health and Well-being Advantages of Bilinguals

One of the best reasons to become bilingual is the enormous health benefits it can have, particularly for the brain.

6. Speaking a second language improves problem-solving, multitasking and decision-making.

Numerous studies have found that bilingualism can improve brain functions like the ability to focus attention and perform mental tasks.

A study in Scotland and Italy found that bilingual children were "significantly more successful" than their monolingual peers in problem-solving and creativity tasks. Another study found that people who speak more than one language can process information more efficiently and easily.

As a bilingual, you are constantly choosing in which language to say a word, and this gives you a lot of practice choosing important information and ignoring extraneous details. This seems to help bilinguals do better at tasks that require multitasking and blocking out distractions.

Speaking another language can even help you make more rational decisions! A study conducted by a team of psychologists at the University of Chicago found that forcing people to rely on a second language when making decisions reduced their natural human biases. The scientists concluded that using a foreign language provided increased cognitive and emotional distance that allowed people to focus on the information rather than their own emotions.

The next time you want to make the most "rational" decision possible, consider thinking about it in a foreign language!

7. Bilingualism can slow the effects of old age.

The benefits of being bilingual are lifelong, but they seem especially important in old age. Cognitive flexibility-the ability to adapt to unfamiliar or unexpected circumstances-tends to decline as we age, but speaking a second language can block that decline or at least significantly delay it.

Research shows that bilingualism can improve cognition and delay dementia in older adults, particularly related to general intelligence and reading abilities.

And while bilingualism cannot prevent Alzheimer's disease, it can delay the onset of symptoms as much as five years. A recent study found that the brains of people who suffered from Alzheimer's show the same physical deterioration whether they were monolingual or bilingual. But the people who speak two languages do not exhibit the typical symptoms of Alzheimer's-such as memory loss, confusion and difficulties with problem-solving and planning-until much later than those who only speak one language.

Get started soon!

There are numerous benefits to gain from speaking a second language, from professional and personal to health benefits. Moreover, learning a foreign language is just fun!

The sooner you learn and the more frequently you use your second language, the greater the benefits will be. So why not get started right away? Find a class, grab a conversation partner or get started with a website like FluentU, which turns real-world videos into personalized language lessons.

You'll thank yourself both during the journey, and when you're reaping the benefits of being bilingual!

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn languages with real-world videos.
Sign up for free!

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7 Benefits of Being Bilingual That'll Change Your Life

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Want a new job? Wish you had better health? Want a more fulfilling personal life? Learn a second language! When discussing the benefits of learning a foreign language, most people think of the straightforward perks right away.