Benefits of Bilingualism - Part Two

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

More than half the world speaks more than one language. New research is showing that being multilingual has some surprising advantages – it can help us keep healthier longer. Gaia Vince finds out how knowing many languages can protect our brains over our lifespan, and even stave off the appearance of some diseases, including dementia.

Gaia attempts the Flanker Task at Lancaster University and then talks to Professor Panos Athanopolous about why bilinguals do better at it than monolinguals.

She hears from Professor Ellen Bialystock from York University in Toronto and Dr Thomas Bak from University of Edinburgh who have discovered that being bilingual can slow down the appearance of Alzheimer’s disease.

Professor Jubin Abutalebi, from the Universita Vita -Saluta San Raffaele in Milan explains how speaking more than one language increases the grey matter in the brain.

And Gaia asks Alex Rawlings, who speaks 15 languages, how we can persuade monolinguals to learn another tongue.

Morag Donaldson talks to Thomas Bak of her experience of taking part in his experiment that showed just 5 days of learning Gaelic improved her cognitive reserve.

The latest research suggests the bilingualism also gives protection against other conditions, such as some stroke and memory loss, as Dr Thomas Bak and Professor Viorica Marian of Northwestern University explain.

(Photo: Welcome to Scotland sign. Credit Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:03.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBCworldservice.com
0:09.0	slash podcasts.
0:13.0	I grew up speaking in Bengali at home.
0:16.0	At some point, you know, when I went to the school, I was introduced English,
0:21.0	which is my second language. At home we speak
0:25.1	Bengali but in the office we speak English so it's half enough. I grew up in
0:31.2	Colombia in South America so naturally I spoke Spanish, but my mother is from the
0:38.1	US. So I grew up hearing her speak English, although I didn't really learn English until about I was
0:45.6	about 12 years old when I went to a bilingual school. I feel more comfortable speaking in Spanish.
0:51.0	I learned English and Hindi right from the time I was a child.
0:55.2	We do Marathi in English with my husband.
0:58.2	With my children I do Hindi in English and my husband is Marathi in English so there are three languages quite
1:05.0	interchangeably used all the time in our family. Many people like those we've
1:10.2	just heard have been bilingual since childhood. I'm Gaya Vince and in discovery
1:15.3	from the BBC today I'm going to be finding out what speaking more than one
1:19.4	language does to our brains throughout our lives. Can being bilingual be good for our health?
1:26.0	In the last programme, still available on the BBC website,
1:30.0	I heard from researchers who found that children who learn in a second language can do well in all kinds of ways.
1:37.0	What is it about being bilingual that gives them the edge?
1:41.0	In terms of advantages, you will find that in most studies, if they look at different
1:46.8	cognitive functions, the cognitive functions are most affected by bilingualism are so-called
	...

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