Why can some people speak dozens of languages? with Ev Fedorenko, PhD

Speaking of Psychology

Kim Mills

Health & Fitness, Life Sciences, Science, Mental Health

4.3 • 781 Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For those of us who speak only one language, the idea of learning twenty or thirty sounds impossible. But there are “hyperpolyglots” who have managed this remarkable feat. Evelina Fedorenko, PhD, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discusses what sets polyglots apart and what scientists might learn from studying them. She also discusses how language is processed in the brain, why it’s so much easier for kids to learn languages than adults, the relationship between language and thought and how we can think without language, and more. Links Ev Fedorenko, PhD Speaking of Psychology Home Page Sponsor Newport Health Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:55.9	For those of us who speak only one language, or maybe even speak two or three, the idea of
1:02.2	learning 20 or 30 sounds impossible.
1:05.2	But there are people who have managed this remarkable feat.
1:08.5	They're called hyper polyglots.
1:10.7	There's no official definition of hyper polyglotism.
1:13.6	The International Association of Hyper Polyglots welcomes members who speak six or more languages,
1:19.6	but some hyper polyglots speak dozens with varying degrees of fluency. So what sets hyperpolyglots apart?
1:26.6	Are they simply smarter than the rest of us,
1:29.5	or harder working, or more motivated to learn? If you put them in a functional magnetic resonance
1:35.5	imaging scanner, do their brains look different from those of monolingles or bilinguals?
1:41.1	And what might scientists discover about how the brain processes language by studying
	...

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