The ability to speak a second language isn’t the only thing that distinguishes bilingual people from their monolingual counterparts—their brains work differently, too. Research has shown, for instance, that children who know two languages more easily solve problems that involve misleading cues. A new study published in Psychological Science reveals that knowledge of a second language—even one learned in adolescence—affects how people read in their native tongue. The findings suggest that after learning a second language, people never look at words the same way again.
Eva Van Assche, a bilingual psychologist at the University of Ghent in Belgium, and her colleagues recruited 45 native Dutch-speaking students from their university who had learned English at age 14 or 15. The researchers asked the participants to read a collection of Dutch sentences, some of which included cognates—words that look similar and have equivalent meanings in both languages (such as “sport,” which means the same thing in both Dutch and English). They also read other sentences containing only noncognate words in Dutch.
Van Assche and her colleagues recorded the participants’ eye movements as they read. They found that the subjects spent, on average, eight fewer milliseconds gazing at cognate words than control words, which suggests that their brains processed the dual-language words more quickly than words found only in their native language.
“The most important implication of the study is that even when a person is reading in his or her native language, there is an influence of knowledge of the nondominant second language,” Van Assche notes. “Becoming a bilingual changes one of people’s most automatic skills.” She plans to investigate next whether people who are bilingual also process auditory language information differently. “Many questions remain,” she says.
Note: This story was originally printed with the title "Bilingual Brains"
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Add CommentI speak 3 languages fluently (Greek, French and English) and I also speak Spanish quite well. I agree with Dr. Van Assche's research findings above, and I believe that I also have an advantage in processing auditory language. This advantage ranges from the obvious - understanding words that have roots in Greek, to being able to communicate easier and understand people that do not speak the languages I do, or speak them at a minimum. Many times I am with my husband (brilliant Geek, total Anglo) and if someone with a very heavy accent is speaking to us (no matter the language) I can understand them at ~95-100%, and my husband just looks at me.....crickets=)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI speak 3 languages fluently (Greek, French and English) and I also speak Spanish quite well. I agree with Dr. Van Assche's research findings above, and I believe that I also have an advantage in processing auditory language. This advantage ranges from the obvious - understanding words that have roots in Greek, to being able to communicate easier and understand people that do not speak the languages I do, or speak them at a minimum. Many times I am with my husband (brilliant Geek, total Anglo) and if someone with a very heavy accent is speaking to us (no matter the language) I can understand them at ~95-100%, and my husband just looks at me.....crickets=)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMmm. Obscure connection at this stage!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnless the research is far more broad-based (different languages/young/old) the assumptions are questionable.
Setting aside the impact of the very high use of the internet in Holland, the Dutch treat English as their second language so they would have a loaded advantage with cognate words.
Primary question: If the same people spoke only 1 language would they read all words at the cognate or noncognate rate? In other words, do they read faster or slower overall than they would as mono-linguists? This study does not address that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"children who know two languages more easily solve problems that involve misleading cues" which is the cause and which is the effect? Does the research address this issue? Does it work both ways? Is it just a matter of education? Any educated person could "more easily solve problems that involve misleading cues"? Is it inherent: children who can "more easily solve problems that involve misleading cues" are capable of learning "two languages more easily"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeaaa! I'v noticed that frequently Spanish speakers, tho I cant say the same of other languages, are more facile in English that its natives; and being a tiny bit conversant is helpful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt may be the growth of extra connections all over.
Some good scientific verification into what has been believed for a long time. Leonardo da Vinci, for instance, was a big proponent of learning another language to stretch one's mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if there is a correlation when there are no cognates. Say someone who speaks English and Chinese, where the words not only have no sounds in common, but the written language is completely distinct?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey, my opinion about that...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that the brain operate only one language ... In the initial state, the brain was trained on a "language set" or mother language .
When a subject is exposed to a new language , it makes his/her language set to grow. Now, the spoken language is a kind of sum of the mother language and the new language . There are not two languages separated in his/her brain.
By this way, even if grammatically the result appears wrong, it seems a great advantage compared with monolingual speakers. For instance, an English/Portuguese speaker person can understand perfectly all phrases:
- I speak English very well ;
- Eu falo Portugu�s muito bem ;
- I speak Portuguese very bem ;
- Eu falo English muito well ;
Thats all ;)
Hey, my opinion about that...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that the brain operate only one language ... In the initial state, the brain was trained on a "language set" or “mother language”.
When a subject is exposed to a “new language”, it makes his/her “language set” to grow. Now, the spoken language is a kind of sum of the “mother language” and the “new language”. There are not two languages separated in his/her brain.
By this way, even if grammatically the result appears wrong, it seems a great advantage compared with monolingual speakers. For instance, an “English/Portuguese” speaker person can understand perfectly all phrases:
- “I speak English very well”;
- “Eu falo Português muito bem”;
- “I speak Portuguese very bem”;
- “Eu falo English muito well”;
That’s all ;)
From birth, I grew up in a bi-lingual household. I can agree or relate to some of the comments and statements in the article. How can I tell which is my dominant or mother language?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am bilingual (Spanish / English); so I will quote "Ricky Ricardo" and say:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-"I am not learning any more English and I am forgetting my Spanish; pretty soon I won't be able to talk at all".
This is a really good start, but Dutch and English are relatively similar. I speak Japanese and English well and a few other languages passably. Selfishly, I'd like to see the study extended to individuals fluent in two or more completely different languages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis suggestion is possible but i think more research is needed to be done on it. Also the sample size of the study was too small to give any absolute conclusion. However, my question remains at the study only focus on people who know 2 languages which are based on similar structure, i.e. alphabet; but how would that affect people outside the Europe, e.g. Chinese, Japanese, whose written languages look totally different from english in terms of their structural system? However, it is still an interesting topic to be looked on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am multi-lingual also, and even for people who don't speak any of my languages, I communicate better with speakers of little English than my mono-lingual co-workers because I can taylor the English to simpler terms. I know which English phrases would be idiomatic or otherwise difficult to understand, and my pronunciation is more natural. Also, I don't raise my voice in effort to be understood by someone who doesn't speak my languages.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBaloney. They've got it backwards, as usual. I speak two languages fluently, and am versitile in another, but that's because I have a gift for it--the same gift that makes my brain "work differently" in other aspects as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeware all psychologial/sociological studies that test some obscure factoid and then make graniose extrapolations--like this one.
I run a website in Dutch and in English. At translating from one language into the other, whichever direction, I feel words and sentences interact with each other towards relative perfection.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am an English/Portuguese speaker so that example works well with my mind. It's called portingl�s, and I'm sure many of know of Spanglish. I'm also learning German, and my mind instantly retreats to my primary second language, Portuguese, and so when I practice German in my head I often end up speaking a variant of deutschugu�s as I have penned it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe trick about learning 2 languages and really having them be one set in your mind is that most people won't know the other languages you speak, and so you'll have to consciously censor your second source of words in order to best communicate, though of course you could include foreign words if you then want to define it and elaborate.
As the more amount of people share the second language vocabulary, the more the dominant language absorbs the secondary language, like how English absorbs Spanish in the U.S., how English absorbed French and many other languages in the past, and how German, let's say, absorbs English into its language.
So I would agree that there is only one language set in your head, but you can make the distinctions in the way you speak that categorizes them as two different languages, even though really you're only speak one language: the culmination of everything you know.
Very interesting initial study. I would like to add some color to any further study on the lines of this one. I am fluent in about eight or nine languages including English, a fair amount of Spanish, Tamil, Hindi, a bit of Urdu, Mathematics, etc. Any one who is linguistically minded will immediately notice that these languages are all from completely dissimilar linguistic trees. I can say without equivocation that I consider myself extremely lucky to have grown up in this multi linguistic environment. Not only can I understand at a gut level, people who speak other languages, I can also communicate with them. Additionally, I have noticed that when I switch to the language of the time, I immediately begin thinking in that language! Consequently I find myself embedded in that culture, something I find exhilarating! Another benefit I have noticed is that I can see connections between words and ideas quite rapidly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisResearch or no research, I recommend everyone learn at least three languages and continue mastering languages. At least from the point of view of being globally competitive, linguistic flexibility is a non-trivial imperative.
I do feel smarter for learning Spanish. If it makes you smarter than i am all for it. Learning a second language makes it easier to learn a third language which is a good opportunity. I think learning Spanish is good for people. It helps them think clearer and look at things differently. They could also use their language to share the gospel in other countries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnglisch is the third language in flanders where this test was done. Everybody has te learn it at the age of 14. French starts at the age of 10 and is also required as the second language. So finding people in flanders that only speak there native language is nearly impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe greatest chessmasters (champions) are bi-lingual. excluding Bobby Fischer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ChicagoMaroon: since when is Mathematics a language? :) Or do you count the programming languages too? :p
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgree. Also, knowing one foreign language well helps one to learn another.. the world is increasingly smaller in terms of global communications. Knowing another foreign language helps one to better understand another country's culture which in tern can lead to improved diplomatic relations
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a distinct difference between people brought up to be bilingual and people having learnt a second language later in life. The second group keep their maternal accents, whereas the first group find it much easier and more natural to translate...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really dislike research which throughs up unwarranted generalizations. I'll bet money that Chinese learners of English will spend "eight [extra] milliseconds gazing at [non-]cognate words than 'control' words, which [will suggest] that their brains [process other languages] more [slowly] than words found only in their native language [compared to their European ESL counterparts]". BTW, Chinese does not contain cognates of any European languages, so ianai at 12:22 PM on 01/21/10 has a real good point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thing I would like to know is if the same speed in processing is applicable to two different languages using different alphabet structures. For example, would a Japanese student reading sentences with lots of words borrowed from English (such as *sporutsu* for sports) enjoy the same speed gain in native language processing, or is the speed more attributable to the shape and form of the printed word itself being similar (so that in the above case, the katakana rendering of *sporutsu* is still visibly different from the word *sports* written in English, and there would be no processing advantage).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat else would you expect? I speak Spanish, I learned English as a second language, and when I learned German as a third language my understanding of English skyrocketed. I could read all novels and writers that used to be difficult for me (in English) as if nothing. Learning German gave me the Germanic roots of words, Spanish gave me the Latin roots, and voila!, reading English became much easier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe use of "cognate" in the article is not quite correct. In English and Dutch, which are closely related languages of the Germanic subfamily, most of the basic words, such as "eye/oog", are cognate, meaning that they have common descent. "Sport" is the same in both languages because both have borrowed it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was brought up speaking English to my mother and Welsh to my father and the rest of the family, so I don't have 'Mother Tongue' - they are equivalent. I don't get interference from one when talking the other, and often I am unaware, unless I reflect on it, which language I am speaking or listening to. When, in adulthood, I had reason to learn learn French I found that the ability to block my native languages was very useful. Even in the early days, when my vocabulary and grammar was quite limited, I found I could use what I had without trying to translate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think it this ability to think a thought and then express it in the language that is in gear at the time rather than think a thought alrady rendered in the mother tongue that sets the bilingual apart.
Cognates have little to do with it. I did not understand English grammar until I took Spanish. Taking a different language gave me a much better understanding of my own. It made my poor grades in English improve.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI certainly agree with the hypothesis that building a child's ability to manipulate more than one code (e.g., language, dialect, creole, etc.) must positively impact his/her cognitive and intellectual development.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an Indian and speaker of three languages Bengali, Hindi and English I feel that the way your expt goes is slightly incomplete; I mean the dutch alphabet and English alphabet are virtually the same; the proper way to go about things will be to select people with bilingual ability with languages written in two different scripts (Like English and Russian); then I believe the cognates do not hold the same visual appeal. Of course only further research will confirm this but I'm speaking from my experience. (Yes, your case is similar to me learning German, I search for a cognate,my eyes literally light up when I see a cognate like Buch and book which would not be as easy if German used say the cyrillic alphabet).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an Indian and speaker of three languages Bengali, Hindi and English I feel that the way your expt goes is slightly incomplete; I mean the dutch alphabet and English alphabet are virtually the same; the proper way to go about things will be to select people with bilingual ability with languages written in two different scripts (Like English and Russian); then I believe the cognates do not hold the same visual appeal. Of course only further research will confirm this but I'm speaking from my experience. (Yes, your case is similar to me learning German, I search for a cognate,my eyes literally light up when I see a cognate like Buch and book which would not be as easy if German used say the cyrillic alphabet).
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