Being able to speak two or more languages comes with a whole host of benefits (not least for your love life). A great and growing body of research has focused on the psychological, economic, and health benefits of being bilingual. Here are ten practical benefits from bilingualism:
It makes learning languages easier
If you can speak two languages already, chances are that you’re pretty good at learning them.
- Even discounting for other factors, like differences in IQ, reading abilities or other cognitive aspects, bilingualism can be isolated as a causal factor in increasing the chances of being able to learn a new language quickly.
It can make you richer
If you speak more than one language, you are likelier to get paid more
- Being bilingual would increase your salary by two percent over 40 years, about $67,000 by the time you retire
- The effects are more marked depending on what language you can speak
Bilingualism reduces the chances of, and slows the worsening of, Alzheimer’s
Learning and speaking multiple languages helps in two ways
- Reduced the chance of getting dementia
- If you get dementia, it slows its onset and lessens the symptoms
- Of course, this does not stop people from getting dementia, but it is a significant factor in reducing the risk.
It makes you more attractive
Being able to speak another language is sexy for many reasons
- It’s exotic, mysterious, and intelligent
- One study put heart monitors on participants and measured which languages got the heart racing fastest. Unsurprisingly, the winner was Italian
- Takeaway: Learning languages makes you sexier
You’ll be more popular
Bilingual children are more popular and better conversationalists
Confounding factors
While there is a lot of evidence that shows bilingualism to be beneficial, it might not be so clear-cut.
- People who have the ability to learn a second language, especially in English-dominant countries, are often better schooled, wealthier, and privileged in other ways.
Bilingualism helps you see things differently
The language you speak helps determine how you interpret actions
- Bilingual people can flip-flop between the “goal orientation” perspective the spoken language demands
- They can interpret aspects of the world according to whichever language they are speaking
It can make your country richer, too
The more a local area, state, or country can speak another language, the greater its economic output.
Bilingualism makes you better at multitasking
Bilinguals are in a constant state of linguistic multitasking.
- When they have to function in a world outside their first or native language, they switch, shift, and process different languages in real-time.
It makes you more empathetic
Empathy is the ability to relate to someone else and to see things as they do.
- Bilingualism allows people to adopt a “metalinguistic” position more easily – that is, seeing a language as only one of many.
It improves certain executive functions
Bilinguals are better at certain kinds of them, namely, those that involve flipping between different types of brain activation.
- Being able to flip between languages makes it easier to switch between executive functions. Takeaway: Bilingualism helps with this because it allows you to read and understand a wider variety of words.
