13 years if you speak 4 languages, 6 years for two languages:
> The study found that those who spoke two languages had brains that appeared around six years younger than those who spoke only one language. People who spoke three languages had brains that appeared around seven years younger, and for those who spoke four languages, their brains appeared about 13 years younger.
> The researchers took account of factors such as people’s age, sex and education, but cautioned that they could not rule out the potential influence of other factors that may have an impact on the brain, such as lifestyle and social engagement.
Perhaps it's just a correlation. Number of spoken linguages may correlate with income, frequent travel, sociability, or other factors that improve or filtre for health, brain health included.
Years ago, when I was considering putting effort and time into learning more computer programming languages, I realized I cared far more about learning other human languages: I was a recent parent, and the importance of strong, positive bonds with other humans was dawning on me, along with an appreciation for mortality. So, I dropped a few energy levels in the computing realm and jumped into learning more spoken languages, using Anki, library books, podcasts, movies in the target languages (thanks to kanopy, another public-library resource paid for by tax money), and, more recently, Clozemaster and Mango (through the local public library! and they have some indigenous north american languages, but none from the region where I currently live; I'll seek local help for that).
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 27.6 ms ] thread> The study found that those who spoke two languages had brains that appeared around six years younger than those who spoke only one language. People who spoke three languages had brains that appeared around seven years younger, and for those who spoke four languages, their brains appeared about 13 years younger.
Putting in another term, I think differently in different languages.
Social engagement has been shown in many ways to be crucial to health.
Perhaps it's just a correlation. Number of spoken linguages may correlate with income, frequent travel, sociability, or other factors that improve or filtre for health, brain health included.