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.
From the article: "the earlier you speak them, the better"
I don't think that this quite matches the notion that learning is the brain's way of exercising, if learning/exercising as a child prevents aging more than learning/exercising as an adult.
Imagine if we could get all of our physical exercising in as children and become lazy as adults. ;-)
In my experience, children who excersise a lot become adults who have a far better baseline and exercise comes easier. Children who never do anything become adults for whom excersise is much more difficult. This seems in line with what the article says about learning?
It slows aging, not reverses it. If the first time you learn 4 languages or get into exercise is when you are 70, you don't immediately have the mine and body of a 57 year old
> This seems in line with what the article says about learning?
No?
Children who learn multiple languages don't necessarily become adults who continue to learn more languages beyond what they learned in childhood, so the analogy with exercise seems to break down.
> 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.
Perhaps there's a U-curve. When I worked in a hotel in a metropolitan city, almost all workers there were multilingual. People from lower-income countries tended to do the unskilled work, whereas people with higher education tended to work at the front desk and in office roles, both having a mix of temporary and permanent residents.
It makes sense to me that the great in-between has less incentive to learn another language, if they're in a monolingual milieu. They don't have the economic push to find better opportunities elsewhere nor the means (or at least the idea) to travel and explore.
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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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 41.2 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.
I don't think that this quite matches the notion that learning is the brain's way of exercising, if learning/exercising as a child prevents aging more than learning/exercising as an adult.
Imagine if we could get all of our physical exercising in as children and become lazy as adults. ;-)
It slows aging, not reverses it. If the first time you learn 4 languages or get into exercise is when you are 70, you don't immediately have the mine and body of a 57 year old
No?
Children who learn multiple languages don't necessarily become adults who continue to learn more languages beyond what they learned in childhood, so the analogy with exercise seems to break down.
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.
It makes sense to me that the great in-between has less incentive to learn another language, if they're in a monolingual milieu. They don't have the economic push to find better opportunities elsewhere nor the means (or at least the idea) to travel and explore.