Does Being Bilingual Make You Smarter?

Do you speak more than one language! Congrats, because studies show that being able to speak in multiple languages is linked to being smarter! We invited Alice Gillet, who is fluent in English and French, onto DNews to discuss why this is.


Read More:
Being bilingual may slow down the brain aging process, says study
"A new study has shown being bilingual is not just a trait that leads to a more well-rounded person, it actually may slow brain aging."

The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual
"We are surrounded by language during nearly every waking moment of our lives."

How the Brain Benefits From Being Bilingual
"Never mind how well spoken you might be now, you will never again be as adept with languages as the day you were born."

Learning second language 'slows brain ageing'
"Learning a second language can have a positive effect on the brain, even if it is taken up in adulthood, a University of Edinburgh study suggests."

Speaking two languages benefits the aging brain
"New research reveals that bilingualism has a positive effect on cognition later in life."

The Benefits of Being Bilingual
"Samuel Beckett, born in a suburb of Dublin in 1906, was a native English speaker. However, in 1946 Beckett decided that he would begin writing exclusively in French."

The Consequences of Bilingualism for the Mind and the Brain
"Until recently, research on language processing and its cognitive basis assumed that monolingual speakers were the model subjects of study and that English provided an adequate basis on which universal principles might be generalized."

Watch More:
Tips on Learning a Foreign Language
TestTube Wild Card
The Universal Word

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[ollynolly]

I can speak 5 languages. It's not really fun when you forget words and only remember it in a certain language

Edit: Wow I forgot I even made this comment but it's great that so many people can relate to it. Yet it seems that 15 year old me that wrote this comment 3 years ago did not learn her lesson of how confusing keeping languages apart can be because I then went on to learn 3 more languages lol.

[jesse]

Explains why I have such a hard time finding the right words to say.

[vilens]

I speak english, french and spanish fluently and can speak pretty good portuguese, but sometimes the word is like in my head and is easy but i cant find it or say it, then i feel dumb for not remembering, that s annoying

[belleblanch]

I speak Mongolian, Russian and English and I mix words a lot, it makes me feel uncomfortable when I speak someone who speaks only one language, I choose words carefully.

[OfftopicStuff]

good news for nearly everybody who does not live in a country where english is an official language...

[TylerDurdentyler]

I speak 4 languages. I don't find it overwhelming at all.

[PoppaPatty]

No matter what. I would say learning another language is never a bad thing.

[camiizyl]

Finally! A good explanation. I have delayed lexical access:(

[Xainfinen]

Having French as my native tongue, speaking English and currently learning Japanese. I've found that i can be very different depending in which language i think.

I tend to think deeply about stuff and have easiest complex decision making it is also easy and more natural for me to talk about personal or intimate subject in English than in French but that's because of the different nature of these languages i guess. On the downside, i suffer a lot from delayed lexical access principally because i have no social life and other people to talk to.

What is awesome about being bilingual is the understanding of the nuances of languages that give so much more in everyday life while interacting with people and different type of humor. You can laugh so much more about anything with your multicultural mind, it give a better insight of the world and if bilingual people react less emotionally it's because they take a step back and look at things with more perspective resulting in better decision making.

[TheOneRebornElyrize]

Actually yeah, learning and speaking english has actually ruined my swedish.. I have a really hard time making sense in swedish in the same way that I am able to in english. >_<

[oscardavila]

Wait, his last name is Dominguez but he cannot speak Spanish? DAFQ...

[ltschmrz.]

I'm trilingual but I am a really forgetful person and I'm horrible at Maths. :/

[blaze]

I actually started learning french about a month ago; and picked up the first few words of what the girl said at the start...

PROGRESS! XD

[jpf]

Totally true about being slow at finding my words sometimes XD I even go as far as express some thoughts in a different language than the one that I am speaking

[Suriner]

"Searching for words"

This! A thousand times this! Exactly. Since I learned English, I never find words in any language I speak.

[Shingjanjie]

I speak dutch, cantonese, madarine and english.
My goals is to learn every language on earth. So i'm planning to rise the whole world, and it only takes me 3 years to speak another language fluently.

[TerenceClark]

I had a funny situation related to the 'activates multiple languages' note toward the end. I studied Spanish in high school for three years. Then I went to college and took Japanese for two years. I went back to visit my high school at one point and had a chat with my 3rd year Spanish teacher. I could totally understand her, but I could only come up with answers in Japanese. Eventually I told her in the best Spanish I could muster at the time we'd have to continue in English because she just wasn't going to be able to understand all the Japanese in my head.

Since then my Japanese has gotten a little stale which I hope to remedy. But I've been using Duolingo to keep my Spanish and pick up a few others. Portuguese was tough at first due to strong similarities with Spanish, but over time that got a lot better. If anyone reading this video plans to pick up new languages I'd highly recommend one that's very different from your native language. It's a lot more challenging, but it really changes the way you think about the world. Japanese was an awesome experience and I'm now enjoying the struggle of Vietnamese, Russian, and Irish Gaelic, among others. I'll never be fluent or even conversational in most of them, but it's just awesome to be able to look at a mess of Cyrillic or Japanese text and get a rough idea of what's being said.

[uzimachi]

Knowing both English and Spanish allows me to understand context. Even if I don't understand a language, I can still sort-of tell what they're saying.

Even though my native language is Spanish I think in English and mostly find writing in English more comfortable.

I also sometimes fail to tell if I'm watching a show or movie in English or Spanish, sometimes half through hearing what they're saying or reading subtitles is where I think about what language I'm reading, I simply understand both so well it's hard to sometimes think about which one I'm looking at, since I understand both.

I can also tell a few languages apart without knowing them, like French, Portuguese, Russian, German and Japanese.

I think the key to learn another language is simple, pay attention to context, look at the words and understand why they are used the way they are used, try and understand in depth every word, practice and repeat those words, have conversations with yourself using that language or find someone who knows it to practice. It's all about practice and paying attention to context.

[EnMaAi]

Totally agree on the losing words when speaking thing.. I speak 3 languages and sometimes It's hard to not mix words of other languages into the conversation I am having in a particular language. Finding the best words to use in a particular situation gets relatively hard too sometimes.

[helluialvarez]

I would give it 100% to: "Learning a new language, makes you smarter."