bilingual

Weekend Diversion: A Second Language

esiegel — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 16:07:57 +0000

Weekend Diversion: A Second Language

"When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images." -Niels Bohr

Although I may write to you exclusively in English, I am fully aware that around half of my readership comes from outside the United States, and that English is the first language of only about 40% of you. Like most Americans, I learned Spanish as my second language when I was in school, and then studied a few other in college, formally, and tried to pick up the language of any country I traveled to. But I am by no means fluent in any language other than my native one, although I'd like to be.

But just as the story of the Universe -- the one that I tell to you in bits and pieces -- is just as true in any other language as it is in mine, so are all the stories of humankind. See if you don't feel that for yourself, listening to Manu Chao's song of loneliness,

Clandestino.

But it's often language that isolates us, when it's completely unnecessary. And it is unnecessary; one of the great finds, that I'm excited to share with you this weekend, is the language learning site, Duolingo.

Image credit: http://duolingo.com/.

Just create an account and select your native language, and Duolingo has modules for French, German, Italian, Portuguese (in Beta), Spanish and English. And depending on how much you already know, you can work through each lesson one step at a time, or test out of any module you feel you've already mastered.

Image credit: http://duolingo.com/.

They have native-to-foreign translations, foreign-to-native translations, and a write-what-you-hear section that are all very good. (There's also an optional speaking section, but frankly their voice-recognition software needs some work. To ignore it, tell Duolingo that your microphone is off.)

Image credit: http://duolingo.com/.

I've been impressed by the accuracy of this program, as well as the subtleties that it's managed to incorporate, from accent marks to recognizing typos to the (often) helpful comments left by other users.

Image credit: http://duolingo.com/.

Once you complete a lesson, you can always go back and practice that section again, or review the words that were highlighted there.

Image credit: http://duolingo.com/.

I wish that there was a piece of software this comprehensive and sophisticated back when I was attempting to learn Spanish back in the 1990s, but I ought to be thankful that it exists now, is accessible from anywhere, and is free.

Image credit: http://duolingo.com/.

With lessons on topics that highlight all of my weak points in a foreign language, including vocabulary and advanced grammar, I have every confidence that my Spanish will quickly get back to where it was at its peak, and hopefully even exceed that modest point if I can stick with it.

Image credit: http://duolingo.com/.

If any of you have any designs on picking up or strengthening a second language, I highly recommend Duolingo, and hope you like it as much as I do!

esiegel Sun, 03/10/2013 - 12:07

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There is something similar for math and science as well: https://www.khanacademy.org/ . I derped around on that webßpage for a while and it seems pretty solid. Its in engligh only though :(

Here is a TED-talk of the initiator of the khan academy. It gives a pretty good first impression.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gM95HHI4gLk

Cheers,
Semmel

Ethan,

I've been learning German on Duolingo for a few months and I agree it excellent system, especially being free. There is another very cool thing about the site you didn't mention. As you progress through the courses you begin translating real Web content. The idea is that eventually the people learning the language are crowd-source translating the internet at the same time.

Thank you SO MUCH for this link. I've been learning German on-and-off (formally and informally) for years now, and I think this will really help me become more dedicated. So far, I've been very impressed. Yes, the voice recognition isn't so great for telling you if you're wrong, but it's nice to play it back, for practice, and hear what I actually sound like (spoiler alert: not very good).

Bilingual children learn language rules more efficiently than monolinguals

edyong — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:00:49 +0000

Bilingual children learn language rules more efficiently than monolinguals

As Eddie Izzard notes in the video above, the English, within our cosy, post-imperialist, monolingual culture, often have trouble coping with the idea of two languages or more jostling about for space in the same head. "No one can live at that speed!" he suggests. And yet, bilingual children seem to cope just fine. In fact, they pick up their dual tongues at the same pace as monolingual children attain theirs, despite having to cope with two sets of grammar and vocabulary. At around 12 months, both groups produce their first words and after another six months, they know around 50.

Italian psychologists Agnes Melinda Kovacs and Jacques Mehler have found that part of their skill lies in being more flexible learners than their monolingual peers. Their exposure to two languages at an early point in their lives trains them to extract patterns from multiple sources of information.

Kovacs and Mehler demonstrated that by sitting a group of year-old infants in front of a computer screen and playing them a three-syllable word. The infants could use the word's structure to divine where a cuddly toy would appear on the screen - if the first and last syllables were the same ("lo-vu-lo"), it would show up on the right, but if the first and second syllables matched ("lo-lo-vu"), it appeared on the left. By watching where they were looking, the duo could tell if they were successfully predicting the toy's position.

Success depended on learning two separate linguistic structures over the course of the experiment. The infants had to discern the difference between 'AAB' words and 'ABA' words and linking them to one of the two possible toy locations. After 36 trials where they got to grips with the concept, Kovacs and Mehler tested the infants with eight different words.

The bilingual ones were much better at it. For both groups of words - AAB and ABA - they initially glanced over to the correct side more often than the wrong one, and they fixed their gaze on it for longer. Monolingual babies only accomplished this for the AAB words - unlike their bilingual peers, they couldn't learn both linguistic rules at the same time.

When Mehler and Kovacs paired the ABA and AAB words with distinctly pitched female and male voices, even the monolingual infants managed to learn the differences between them. So while both sets of children can happily associate two speakers with two different types of word (and two screen positions), only the bilingual infants could learn two linguistic structures at the same time.

This advantage could stem from a better ability at avoiding interference between the two three-syllable constructions. Earlier this year, I wrote about other research from Agnes Melinda Kovacs and Jacques Mehler, who showed that infants raised in bilingual households have better executive functions - a catch-all term for advanced mental abilities that involve control, helping us to keep our goals and plans in mind while avoiding distraction from instinctive behaviours. These skills would certainly come into play when they tried to learn two separate languages at the same time.

Reference: Kovacs, A., & Mehler, J. (2009). Flexible Learning of Multiple Speech Structures in Bilingual Infants Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1173947

More on bilinguals and child development:

edyong Sat, 07/11/2009 - 06:00

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This is interesting, simply because it makes me think there must be a cost to being bilingual, simply because, if being bilingual gives these amazing abilities, why is it not the case that the natural state of human communities is to possess at least 2 languages? You could answer "Nationalism", but then why would a national group have a single national language, rather than 2 or more national languages (like, why do French people have French (or their local dialect) rather than French A, French B and French C)? If there is no monolingual advantage, then why is monolinguality the norm except where different ethnic groups who have different ethnic languages are in contact? Of course, maybe the "monolingual advantage" is just that where there is no communicative advantage, people cannot be bothered to make up multiple languages, as the cost outweighs the benefit.

Regarding executive function, has this been controlled against parental executive function or compared to non-bilingual sibs? It interests me if children who have parents with normal executive function have boosted executive function. If children become bilingual because they have bilingual parents, and their parents are bilingual because they have high executive function (if you follow the reasoning that being bilingual requires executive function), and executive function is heritable, this is still interesting, but not the same story. As I understand it, executive function is described as having high heritability, so this would make sense to check - http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/05/executive-functions-mostly-heritable.p….

very interesting i agree. as you probably know the US is rapidly becoming a dual english-spanish speaking country. despite my proficiency in spanish, i started learning too late to ever become fluent... now i have one more excuse for my stunted brain development :)

Most people learn the languages they need or want to learn, naturally. Our school based language learning has conditioned people to not like languages. This needs to change.

I must say this is a great article i enjoyed reading it keep the good work.Because languages is so important in this society.

"Our school based language learning has conditioned people to not like languages."

I went through the state school system here in the UK and came out the other side proficient in French and German, and I've gone on to study Chinese, Mongolian and Indonesian at university. I love learning languages, and I'm pretty good at it. I'd say that reducing the complex issue of why people in English-speaking countries don't learn other languages to the simple idea of language classes in schools being boring is misleading. And how do you propose to change it? Languages can't be learned without instruction, unless you live in an environment where the language is spoken all the time without alternatives, and even then, that leads to a skewed development. I know quite a few ex-pats in places like Taiwan who have learned to speak reasonably well and who may even have a convincing accent, but whose grammar is shoddy (in terms of being able to construct sentences themselves) and whose reading and writing, beyond basics (like "toilet"), is abysmal.
And having sat through languages classes in German schools, I can tell you that they're just as boring as anywhere, but their English and French are generally very good.

"why is it not the case that the natural state of human communities is to possess at least 2 languages?"

It depends on what you consider to be a language (as opposed to a dialect), but in some ways it is a natural state. Certainly, in a lot of developing countries it's the case. In the Philippines, most people speak at least rudimentary English, Filipino (Tagalog), and whatever the local language is. Children might have a Cebuano-speaking mother and a Waray-speaking mother, and at school they speak English and Tagalog. A lot of Africa is like that too. You could also consider the state of language in a lot of Indonesia - not only do people speak Indonesian reasonably well, but also the local language; and not only that, but with languages like Javanese and Balinese, there are three "levels of language", dependant on who you're speaking to, each with a different set of vocabulary (completely different, in most cases). So someone who speaks standard Indonesian and Javanese might speak four languages already.
It's interesting that you use French as an example, because until the late 19th century, most French citizens didn't speak standard French as a first language. There used to be a lot of variation, and no doubt people spoke both standard French and the local language to a high degree of proficiency. Italy was the same. Monolingalism is not the norm, in a sense. Or at least, it wasn't the norm until very recently, when media divided neatly along national lines.

@matt: "why is it not the case that the natural state of human communities is to possess at least 2 languages?"

How would these be defined as 'two languages'? Take for example the idea of having 'french A' and 'french B'. With everyone using them to communicate with each other, it would just become one language. French. The words would be used interchangably and grammer rules would merge.

Hightened learning ability is not necessary for continued survival and reproduction, therefore does not confir an evolutionary advantage. And as most human brains are, at base, a little lazy, learning only one set of language rules tends to be prefered, unless necessity, or personal preference, dictates the learning of two.

My understanding of worldwide bilingualism is that not so long ago the majority of people would have been bilingual due to trading. It's possible that the rise of the nation state has led to the reduction in languages worldwide and the reduction of bilingualism.

Bilingualism is also a tricky thing to define. I can speak a tiny bit of french but don't consider myself bilingual. At what point does one become bilingual? When you can arrange travel? (Common) When you can understand most of the utterances you hear? (Less common) When the native speakers of the 2nd language can't tell that you're not a native speaker?(rare. This of course does not include the complexities of when the 2nd language was learned.

By the way, this is an excellent blog.

I just got back from Italy and it always amazes me that a lot of people there hardly speak any English. This makes it hard for me to talk to people, since I can't understand any Italian, even with the help of Google Translate (most sentences sound to me like one very long word).
I've run into the same problem in France.
I'm from The Netherlands, where we get taught English in school from an early age. I think other countries should follow this example, it would solve a lot of problems and apparently it's even good for the development of the brain.
It would also help a lot if these countries would stop dubbing TV shows and movies, Transformers: Vendetta del Caduto just doesn't sound right.

@matt: Where ever did you get the idea that monolingualism is the natural state of humans? Just because it happens to be that way in eg. the US doesn't mean it goes for the rest of the world. In many places, the "natural" state is to be bilingual (or tri-...); look at India, Indonesia, etc. etc. There are a lot of places where people grow up to be bilingual simply because the next village has a different language (I read somewhere about a place where it was only considered proper to marry someone who spoke a different language from yours, probably Papua New Guinea...).

Anyway, the point is that if you do grow up in a place where you hear two languages from people who you have to deal with (ie. within the group of parents, friends, educators there are at least two languages), any normal human will learn both. It just happens, without any more trouble than learning one language. The fact that many cultures now are monolingual is to be considered "accidental" â it has completely different causes.

And of course, enforcing one language is a great way of ensuring that minority groups stay subdued; this has happened in a lot of societies over the years (eg. in the past the SÃ¡mi people of northern Norway were not allowed to speak SÃ¡mi at school, nor keep any of their other symbols of their own culture â fortunately this is not the situation today).

Hm.
Can we draw any correlations between countries who are generally "monolingual" vs. "multilingual" and their effect/impact/contribution/development in the world? If so, is this due at all or in part to those linguistic practices as a whole?

Does having multiple languages impede communication and thus impede development of the whole?

One more thing got me thinking in the article. What languages were represented in the "bilingual" children? Was there any correlation between the language's distance apart in language trees and their improved ability? Would there be furthur performance discrepancy between an English-Spanish environment and an English-Chinese environment?

@Eric makes a good point about the languages of the bilingual children. Different languages have different proportions of AAB and ABA word structures:
http://theadventuresofauck.blogspot.com/2009/12/processing-two-structur…

Also, about the levels of bilingualism in the world, see here:
http://theadventuresofauck.blogspot.com/2009/11/levels-of-bilingualism…

Selective aphasia in a brain damaged bilingual patient

neurophilosophy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:17:37 +0000

Selective aphasia in a brain damaged bilingual patient

IN the 1860s, the French physician Paul Broca treated two patients who had lost the ability to speak after suffering strokes. When they died, he examined their brains, and noticed that both had damage to the same region of the left frontal lobe. About a decade later, neuropsychiatrist Carl Wernicke described a stroke patient who was unable to understand written words or what was said to him, and later found in this patient's brain a lesion towards the back of the left temporal lobe.

Thus was established the classical neurological model, in which language is localized to two specific areas of the left hemisphere. Recently though, researchers have found evidence that some components of language are encoded in other brain regions. Furthermore, it is still unclear how the brain represents language in bilingual people. Some studies suggest that both languages are represented in the same set of laguage areas, while others point to distinct neural substrates for the first and second languages.

A unique case study published in the open access journal Behavioral and Brain Functions sheds some light on this matter. The study, by Raphiq Ibrahim, a neurologist at the University of Haifa, describes a bilingual Arabic-Hebrew speaker who incurred brain damage following a viral infection. Consequently, the patient experienced severe deficits in one language but not the other. The findings support the view that specific components of a first and second language are represented by different substrates in the brain.

The patient, referred to as M.H., is a 41-year-old high school biology teacher. A native Arabic speaker, he learned Hebrew at an early age (4th grade) and later used it competently both professionally and academically. He was proficient enough in the language to graduate from an Israeli university, at which he was taught in Hebrew. In 2004, M.H. was admitted to the local hospital with with a sudden onset of fever and confusion. His cerebrospinal fluid tested positive for Herpes simplex virus, and he was given the antiviral drug Zovirax. Two days later, he suddenly began to experience headaches, vomiting and disturbances of consciousness.

A CT scan showed that he had suffered a massive hemorrhage in the left temporal lobe, which was compressing the tissue on both sides of the central sulcus, the prominent gfissure which separates the frontal and parietal lobes. A craniotomy was performed to relieve the pressure, and afterwards another scan showed moderate hemorrhage and herpes encephalitis in the left temporal lobe, and another hemorrhage beneath the outer membrane (the dura) lying over the right frontal lobe. He began to recover, but two days after the operation became lethargic, and was sent to another hospital for rehabilitation. During his 2 month stay there, he developed epileptic seizures which originated in the left temporal lobe, and amnestic aphasia (an inability to name objects or to recognize their written or spoken names).

After the rehabilitation period, a series of linguistic tests was administered to determine the extent of his speech deficits. M.H. exhibited deficits in both languages, but the most severe deficits were seen only in Hebrew. In this language he had a severe difficulty in recalling words and names, so that his speech was non-fluent and interrupted by frequent pauses. He had difficulty understanding others' spoken Hebrew, and also had great difficulty reading and writing Hebrew. In Arabic, his native language, all of these abilities were affected only mildy. Differences were also seen in the effects of intensive language therapy. Although the therapy led to improvements in both languages, the improvements in Arabic were seen in all linguistic abilities; in Hebrew, by contrast, there was only mild improvement in his spontaneous speech and comprehension, and his ability to name objects remained unchanged.Similarly, his ability to read and write Arabic, but not Hebrew, improved significantly.

Most previous studies of bilinguals have used participants who speak English and one other Western European language. This is the first to investigate bilingualism in the Semitic languages, which differ markedly in structure from Indo-European languages. Nevertheless, it it provides valuable evidence about the mechanisms of lanuage processing in the bilingual brain. The results support a neurolinguistic model in which the brain of bilinguals contains a semantic system (which represents word meanings) which is common to both languages and which is connected to independent lexical systems (which encode the vocabulary of each language). The findings further suggest that the second language (in this case, Hebrew) is represented by an independent subsystem which does not represent the first language (Arabic) and is more susceptible to brain damage.

Related:

Ibrahim, R. (2009). Selective deficit of second language: a case study of a brain-damaged Arabic-Hebrew bilingual patient. Beh. Brain Funct. 5: 17 [Full text].

neurophilosophy Fri, 07/10/2009 - 10:17

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The varying and sundry aphasias and agnosias are really fascinating, in part because they tease out the various dissociations between tasks in the brain. Nice piece!

"The findings further suggest that the second language (in this case, Hebrew) is represented by an independent subsystem which does not represent the first language (Arabic) and is more succeptible [sic] to brain damage."

One could posit a parsimonious explanation based on Ribot's Law.

Ribot's Law of retrograde amnesia was proposed by ThÃ©odule Ribot in 1881. Ribot's Law states that there is a time-gradient in retrograde amnesia. Recent memories are more likely to be lost than the more remote memories.

The above findings that the older, primary language Arabic was better preserved than the newer, secondary language Hebrew is consistent with this well established Law in neuropsychology.

My father had several cerebral hemorrhages as a result of an aberrant form of cerebral amyloid angiopathy (which wasn't preceded by dementia). After the first, he had to be taught to read and write again, and did so with very little difficulty, leading his neurologists to conclude that he had mixed brain dominance (this was in 1987, 1988 or so) as a result of being left-handed - or maybe not (he had broken his right collarbone just as he was about to start school and they had allowed him to use his left hand, unusual for 1926 in North America). He had severe anomia, although he became a master of circumlocution (he once described chick peas/garbanzo beans as 'those little round animals we never used to eat till you came to stay with us' - I knew precisely what he meant. :)

After his second stroke however, I was amazed to come down a hallway at the Montreal Neurological Institute and hear him speaking fluent French - which he had studied in an immersion course 15 years earlier - but which he had by no means mastered. In fact, he was doing so badly in his French immersion course that he had to seek a unilingual position because he wasn't going to pass the course. I'm not sure how this fits in with Ribot's Law (it would seem to contradict it). In my father's case I concluded that right brain damage had lowered his inhibitions to some extent, and that explained why he was suddenly willing to speak French. And that he had always been able, just disinterested in learning the language.

Hi Mo,

Great write-up! I'm no aphasia expert but one fascinating phenomenon for me is 'alternating antagonism' where through the recovery process bilingual patients have alternating access to their languages. Only one, then only the other, then only the first again, and so on, until the difficulties resolve.

There are a few case studies in the literature (one of which is between Farsi and German).

This strikes me as interesting as it suggests that everything is 'intact' but there are access problems. I don't know enough about neurolinguistics to make a stab at what this tells us about the structure of language but I think it's interesting that languages can be impaired without seeming to damage their core mechanisms or resources.

Another good one Mo, thanks!

Roland: I shouldn't think Ribot's Law applies here, as the second language was acquired at such an early age. Your definition of it is exactly the same as Wikipedia's. Did you copy it from there? And thanks for pointing out the typo; I like how you did that...

Ruth: Fascinating story about your father - thanks for sharing it. It's true that some left-handed people have a bilateral representation of speech. As a result, they often have milder symptoms and better prognosis following stroke than right-handed people. Thanks also for feeding my vocabulary with a new word (cirumlocution; brilliant!).

Vaughan: Thank you! I didn't know about alternating antagonism - it's certainly remarkable. Unfortunately I, like you, don't know enough about neurolinguistics to fully understand the implications.

@ Muse142

"The varying and sundry aphasias and agnosias are really fascinating, in part because they tease out the various dissociations between tasks in the brain."

Indeed. Excellent post, Mo!

Interesting post. For individuals with lexical access issues, the resilience of vocabulary to brain damage, and the success in therapy, may be due to frequency of usage as well as age of acquisition. It would have been nice to know more details about the therapy...

Sometimes, in young children with intractable epilepsy, an entire hemisphere of their brain is removed. I've read (in popular writeups, not source papers) that they can grow up more or less normal, mentally.

Surely this implies that language (and many other cortical functions) are not always embedded in the same location in the brain in every person. No doubt various areas are specialized for certain functions. But if those areas become unavailable at an early age, other areas can be recruited to perform the same functions. It seems that culture (in the broad sense) is a strong enough influence, and brain is sufficiently plastic, that we don't actually need those areas to learn to (e.g.) speak.

Really a very good post! I'm not a specialist by any way, but I think that the difference between the two languages is that the one was the mother tongue, while the other was not. Mother tongue is learnt while one is an infant, something that includes listening to the language from the very first days of existence. I can imagine that this process is different brain-wise. A language that is being learnt after the age of 5-6 years old is actually learnt in a different way than ones mother tongue and I expect another brain process is at work.

It is very interesting the post, as usual, I could say.
However, I agree with the last person who comments that the second language was learned already at more advanced age (if 4th gradeers can be called like that...).
I was wondering if there are studies involving "true" bilinguals, meaning those who learn two languages from infancy. My children learned two languages as their father and I have different mother language. My son asked me the other day: what if I will forget Spanish? (now, he is learning in school in a third language). I told him, he can't forget mother language(s) (in his case, mother and father language :) ). It seems to be a correct answer, but is it?

A perhaps related phenomena to the distinction between mother and learned tongue.

First, try listening to a professional news broadcast spoken in a language you don't know. You catch inflection, tone, etc. no problem, but have no idea what is being said. Next, listen at barely audible volume.

Next, listen to a professional news broadcast in a learned language, but do so again at the normal and then the low volume. In my experience, you can easily slip in and out of "recognition mode" where you do or don't understand what's being said, because the base listening conditions are so poor.

Next - and only attempt this after experiencing the slippage described above - listen to a to a professional news broadcast in your native language, both at normal and then barely audible levels. I have found that even at barely audible levels, it is almost impossible to "hear" it without "hearing" it. Meaning that, the volume is either so low I simply can't hear it, or it's loud enough to understand what is being said. There's very little in between. But! there is an in between, and it feels very weird. There is a volume level at which I can with great difficulty hear spoken english the same way I hear spoken.. German: meaning such that I hear it as a foreign language, as if the person is speaking something that is nonsense to me. But then when it slips back in to English, I'm amazed that I have not understood it all along.

I think this kind of experimental condition is ripe for exploitation.. wish this were my field! :)

Just to let you know that I found this article fascinating and have linked to it from my blog,which would be of no interest whatsoever to scence bods.Not too sure about 'netiquette' - didn't want to 'steal' without saying thanks.

Hello I am Sha!
Assalam-o-Alaikum!
I really like & love the arabic as a "Language".
The impression I got immediately after I
completed MA English was that I should have
studied "Arabic".
I have grown a strong passion and attachment
for Arabic and the Arabs. How much it can last?
This is what i don't know nor am much sure about
but if your gals and guys out there help me, my
love might become fruitful for me.
Why do i like and love arabic and the Arabs?
This is sort of expansive questions.
I only know that Arabic is soft, smooth
and melodius.
The Arabs are loving, sincere and sobre.
Well, what I don't know is if they are
lovers of their language too or not.
I aspire to someday talk fluently in arabic.
Talk to my friends. But can i attract Arabic
-speakers to my self by speaking their lang-
uage is yet another thing to be experienced
still.
Arabic is the language of the Muslims but i do
believe ALLAH will hear and help me even when
i speak my mother tongue to ask him. I am
sensitive to the degree that if i like something
just for the sake of some good and great point
in it and I am not answered positively.... I
really begin to hate that thing. Well i don't
know why should i do it but still here i am to
do it. I like to chat, sing, speak, think, write
and argue in Arabic. I have no intention to
visit an Arabic speaking country as yet but
can it be helpful enough in learning a language to
personally visit the country where it is spoken?
Because we have been in this country of ours for
since our birth but still we haven't got command
and control over the national language spoken
here. Does it go to say that it doesn't matter
a lot to visit a country for the solitary purpose
of learning a language spoken there? I like the
h sound of Arabic and also I like it for not
having the clattering sounds of t,d etc. I
want to have good really good arabic language
friends. I can teach you English "only and only
if you think you need it". I should thank you
in advance if you think my love for Arabic and
the Arab is something valuable.
With best regards it is farhad (underscore)
alishah (at) yahoo (dot) com
my cell number is zerozeroninetwothreeonetwo
fivezerotwozeroeighteighteight
Wassalam-o-Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah!
( I shall be really anxiously waiting for
the language friend of my dreams.
How can i say in Arabic
"The lover and Admirer of Arabic as a Language"
Bubye thanks

Bilingual infants have better mental control

edyong — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:33:59 +0000

Bilingual infants have better mental control

Learning a new language as an adult is no easy task but infants can readily learn two languages without obvious difficulties. Despite being faced with two different vocabularies and sets of grammar, babies pick up both languages at the same speeds as those who learn just one. Far from becoming confused, it seems that babies actually develop superior mental skills from being raised in a bilingual environment.

By testing 38 infants, each just seven months old, Agnes Melinda Kovacs and Jacques Mehler have found that those who are raised in bilingual households have better "executive functions". This loose term includes a number of higher mental abilities that allow us to control more basic ones, like attention and motor skills, in order to achieve a goal. They help us to plan for the future, focus our attention, and block out instinctive behaviours that would get in the way. Think of them as a form of mental control.

The role of these abilities in learning multiple languages is obvious - they allow us to focus on one language, while preventing the other from interfering. Indeed, children and adults who learn to use two languages tend to develop better executive functions. Now, Kovacs and Mehler have found that even from a very young age, before they can actually speak, children develop stronger executive functions if they grow up to the sound of two mother tongues. They show a degree of mental control that most people their age would struggle to match.

Kovacs and Mehler worked with 14 babies who heard two languages from birth, and 14 who had experienced just one. The babies saw a computer screen with two white squares and heard a short, made-up word. After that, a puppet appeared in one of the squares. There were nine words in total, and each time the puppet appeared in the same place. As the test went on, all the babies started focusing on the correct square more frequently, showing that they had learned to anticipate the puppet's appearance. That's a simple task that doesn't require much in the way of executive function.

The next nine trials used a different puppet that appeared in the other square. The infants' job was to learn that the link between word and puppet had changed, but only the bilingual ones were good at this. Unlike their monolingual peers, they learned to switch their attention to the other square. To Kovacs and Mehler, this is a sign of superior mental control - they had to override what they had previously learned in order to pick up something new. The monolingual infants, however, behaved as babies their age usually do - they stick with responses that had previously paid off, even if situations change.

In a second experiment, Kovacs and Mehler added subtle differences between the nonsense words before and after the switch, so that either the first or last two syllables were repeated. Other studies have found that infants can recognise these subtle changes and indeed, before the switch, the repeated syllable made it easier for all of them to learn the link between word and puppet. But after the switch, even this extra hint failed to help the monolinguals to anticipate the arrival of the puppet in its new location.

At seven months of age, babies can't read yet, so the language skills of bilingual infants depends on hearing the spoken words of their parents. Nonetheless, their heightened executive functions also apply to other senses, including their vision. When the puppet's appearance was prompted by three coloured shapes instead of nonsense words, the bilingual infants were still better at changing their predictive gazes when the puppet started flashing up on a different square.

The advanced abilities of bilingual children aren't driven by richer parents who spend more time with them, for Kovacs and Mehler made sure that they recruited their babies from households with similar incomes. Nor do they reflect generally higher intelligence, for all the babies in this study learned that words or symbols predicted the appearance of a puppet.

Their only advantage was in being able to suppress something they had already learned and update their predictions using new information. Listening to two languages from birth accelerates the development of this mental control. To Kovacs and Mehler, these enhanced abilities are surely useful in allowing babies from bilingual households to separate their knowledge of two different languages without getting confused between them.

Like all good studies, this one raises more questions than it answers. Is there an age where learning two languages stops boosting a child's executive functions? Clearly, starting while they're in the crib works, but what if they've already reached school age? Would the benefits be even greater if the two languages were very similar, forcing the babies to work even harder to discriminate between them?

And what are the long-term effects of this early headstart? Do they persist, or does it all level out in the end? If the former, are their noticeable differences in mental control between cultures where bilingualism is incredibly common (e.g. the Dutch) and those where most people can't conceive of having more than one language per head (e.g. the English)?

Reference: Kovacs, A., & Mehler, J. (2009). Cognitive gains in 7-month-old bilingual infants Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0811323106

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edyong Tue, 04/14/2009 - 02:33

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Interesting--I'll be interested to hear how those questions are answered by other studies.

Another question: to what extent does this contribute to the success of the children of immigrants in America?

"Another question: to what extent does this contribute to the success of the children of immigrants in America?"

My guess is that it would only have some effect on those children whose parents were fluent in more than one language to begin with. I myself grew up speaking three languages simultaneously as did my siblings. All of us have always suspected that the way we process information is different from people who are merely monolingual.

My nephews and nieces having been born in Europe are growing up as polyglots speaking four or five languages and this is not uncommon among their peers.

My own son is only bilingual and is a very high functioning Aspergers child, I'm quite convinced that the fact that he is at least bilingual has been helpful to the development of his social skills. He also seems to have a natural talent for the language of mathematics.

This researches' area seems quite interesting and I'm glad that someone took it on.
As far as I know bilingual children are confused in using (but not understanding) languages till the age of 5. It can be mixing grammar taken from one language with using vocabulary from the second one or using both languages in one sentence. Sounds funny but parents can be worried.
I wonder if there is any distinction between children who learn 'similar' mother languages (let's say English and German) and those, whose parents languages are completely different (as English and Chineese)...
What I would love to know is how the multilingual brain develops. When child learns one mother language it is written in one part of cortex while the other languages have their own 'places' on the other hemisphere. What about the bilingual and their mother- and non-mother languages?
Is there any change in commissura magna structure? Or maybe coding and using informations is in other way than 'normal'?
So many questions, so many possibilities...
I'm looking forward fresh news!

This is a very interesting topic. If children benefit from speaking two languages then is there a connection between the number of languages a child is exposed to and their intelligence? This could make a very fascinating science fair project.

So would sign language count? Or only spoken, verbal language?

> "As far as I know bilingual children are confused in using (but not understanding) languages till the age of 5"

This depends on the child, but I personally would not use the word "confused". My own children, both raised bilingually were never "confused" and from the day they started talking knew the difference between the two languages. Some bilingual children do "mix" languages, but they are not "confused" - just pulling from their wide vocabulary, and this is not uncommon and not a bad thing. It eventually goes away (but even some adults who live in a bilingual setting mix).

Addressing the questions;

1.To what extent does this contribute to the success of children of immigrants in America?
2.What are the long-term effects of an early headstart?

I believe the results of this study to be true in my lifeâs experiences. I am a bilingual adult child of immigrant parents and I have had the opportunity to spend extended time living outside of the United States. Living in France, Italy and Spain, as well as the U.S. and Chile, has shown me that my ability to learn and interpret new languages is very good.

I enjoy the arts and computer technology and believe that, for similar reasons expressed in this study, the benefits gained from learning multiple languages have helped to strengthen my abilities in learning new concepts. This ability stands out when trying to learn new computer related languages such as html or flash, which I find analogous to linguistics.

I have two nieces, both born in the U.S., which are growing up as polyglots speaking multiple languages as well. It is amazing to see their social and linguistic abilities grow so rapidly as children interacting between two cultures. They both understand words, pictures and songs in both languages very well. I have found an informative study that provides interesting research into this topic, in relation to the two questions asked above.

A comprehensive study, recently published in January â09 by Ramirez; Perez; Valdez; and Halladdressed, provides additional research and insight into answering these questions. Controlling for the effects of income and education, the principal objective of the study was to investigate the long-term (35-36 years) effects of a k-3 bilingual-multicultural programme by studying the former participants and controls as adults in their 30âs and 40âs.

The study was too long to summarize here, but it is very in depth and can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a908968994~db=all~jump…