Hey everyone, some background about me. I’ve been living in Japan for the last 2 years after arriving with absolutely zero Japanese. Since then I’ve read 36 books entirely in Japanese and these days I understand most casual Japanese TV shows I watch.
I wrote a blog post recently summarizing what I found regarding learning a second language and the effects it has on the brain. I figured this could be especially motivating to late-learners as well as people starting their journey.
Some of the **TLDRs** from the post:
– Significant evidence that learning a second language increases in measurable benefits. This includes regions of the brain physically becoming larger as well as increased performance in executive functions, things like planning, self-control, problem-solving, etc.
– Even short term learning causes physical changes in the brain, that grows over time as you learn, or reverts if you stop learning.
– Shown to delay onset of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases
Anyways here’s the post if you’re interested in reading the details:
### Language Learning: Scientifically Proven to Make You Smarter
Today I want to talk about the effects of learning a language has on the brain.
This idea mainly came about for two reasons:
1. I’ve been reading [Neuroplasticity by Moheb Costandi](https://www.amazon.com/Neuroplasticity-MIT-Press-Essential-Knowledge/dp/0262529335/ref=sr_1_8?crid=2900F5ZPWB0VM&keywords=neuroplasticity&qid=1680692070&sprefix=neuroplastic%2Caps%2C405&sr=8-8) and the topic of learning a language came up.
2. I had to write a paper for college about something informative and I picked this topic since I’ve spent the better part of the last two years learning Japanese.
First, here are some selected excerpts from the book.
### Neuroplasticity
– “Brain training” is a multimillion dollar industry referring to games designed to increase mental functions. Currently there is **very little evidence** these products lead to what psychologists call **transfer effect**s. What this means in simple terms is that these products will make you better at the specific skill they test, but ultimately lead to little carryover to other skills.
– Despite that fact, there is significant evidence that other types of brain training have significant effects on the organ.
– One of these “brain training” activities is learning a language. A 2004 study using voxel-based morphometry (a technique used to analyze the brain by dividing brain images into 3D units called “voxels” and **measuring the amount of brain tissue** in each voxel) showed that bilingual Europeans compared to their monolingual counterparts, had **increased gray matter density** in the **left inferior parietal lobule**, a region of the brain involved in a number of important functions, such as **phonological working memory**, **lexical learning**, and **integration of information** from diverse sources.
– Subsequence studies show that learning a second language is associated with anatomical changes such as **cortical thickness** in brain areas linked to language, as well as changes in the **architecture of the white matter tracts** that interconnect them.
– Even **short-term language training** showed physical differences, as exhibited by college students and military interpreters who enrolled in intensive **three-month** language courses.
– However, changes appear to be **reversible**. Adult Japanese speakers who took a **six-week English-language course** has **increased gray matter density** compared to the control groups. Follow-up scans showed **even bigger increases** in those who continued their language practice, although those who stopped had their gray matter density **returned to pre-training levels**.
– There is scientific evidence that learning a language **does have transfer effects**, primarily with **improving performance** on tasks that involve **executive functions** such as **reasoning**, **task switching**, and **problem solving**.
– Learning a second language also seems to have **neuroprotective effects**, **reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease** and other neurodegenerative conditions by **increasing “cognitive reserve”,** referring to the mind’s resistance to brain damage.
– The other “brain training” activities that seem to have significant scientific evidence that lead to “transfer effects” are:
1. Athletic training.
2. Musical training.
3. Expertise in a domain, achieved roughly b**y at least four hours of training every da**y for around **10 years.**
– It’s no wonder that the stereotypical image of the well-rounded, smart student is one that speaks multiple languages, participates in sports, and plays an instrument.
### **[An Effect of Bilingualism on the Auditory Cortex](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6621793/)**
– The structure that houses the auditory cortex of the brain is known as **Heschl’s gyrus (HG).**
– Volumetric measurements of the HG revealed that, controlling for other variables such as **ethnicity**, **education**, **socio-economic status**, and **musical experience** (another factor that has demonstrated measurable effects on the brain)**, bilinguals have, on average, larger HG** than monolinguals. They were also shown to have **larger gray matter volumes.**
– Since the bilinguals in the study were **not self-selected,** their observations showed a **clear demonstration that learning a language is a casual facto**r in the **increased size of the auditory cortex.**
– Because the study compared results of **groups of similar people that were not self-selected,** this eliminates the **bias of survivorship**, aka smarter people who have larger brains would naturally result in more of them having learned a second language.
– From the figures mentioned, **a bilingual person has an auditory cortex that is 17% larger** on average than the average monolingual person’s brain.
### ****[Reshaping the Mind: The Benefits of Bilingualism](https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0025406)****
– Bialystok and her team found that the average age of dementia symptom onset was **75.5 years for monolingual patients**, while for **bilingual patients, it was 78.6 years**.
– Bilingualism can enhance **cognitive processes**, particularly **executive function**. Executive function refers to a set of mental processes that allow individuals to **plan**, **organize**, **focus attention,** **regulate emotion**s, and **switch between tasks**.
13 comments
Sorry about the formatting, I mostly just copied and pasted it. I hope you find it useful and motivating in your journey. Learning a language is a huge commitment of time and energy but I believe the benefits are worth it.
Interesting, but not surprising. Brain needs to think/remember more – brain gets bigger. Brain stops trying, brain gets smaller. Evolution sees to it that we don’t waste resources (that could go otherwise into reproduction – or useful associated activities) by building up body parts when we don’t need or want to.
I can definitely feel things in the opposite direction.
Recently been suffering from illness, and have been either stuck in bed or sedentary for about 3 months now. Feels like I’ve at 10% of my usual thinking capacity, and due to being too tired and/or physically sick to do anything that engages my brain most of the time, I increasingly feel like a potato that just has mild reactions stimuli.
Feels like a far cry from my days of learning 2 languages at the same time. Aiming to get better soon, and back to active use of my most precious instrument!
Can you link some of the studies that purport to show transfer effects from language learning?
Do you have more details about what qualifies as training? For example musical training. If you were already something like a world class musician, would just playing around count? Or if you were fluent in Japanese would talking to people count? Now that I’ve been doing my job for 10+ years does it count as daily training?
Or is it the act of actually learning and practicing something new that is actually important here?
Did you see any studies about other creative pursuits? For example is music better compared to something like sculpting or carpentry?
https://www.livescience.com/brain-training-probably-wont-reduce-alzheimers-risk
Can you link the materials you actually used to learn Japanese?
bruh, I just like Japanese, I wasn’t expecting it to be a big brain move.
That’s cap I’m fucking stupid
Is this a thing only for a second language, or would one benefit even more from a third and fourth language?
2 years ago I decided to learn watercolor painting and drawing as a new skill. I put in quite a bit of time and got to be quite decent.
My ADHD brain then decided that I wanted to learn Japanese, since I’ve been watching anime for close to 30 years and love Japan. So 9 months ago I bought Genki I for self-study, and eventually enrolled in a class. I now put in 30 mins of Anki every day, and hours of study on the weekends.
The thing is, learning japanese has taken over my free time and I no longer paint or draw. It’s nice to see your post about the positive effects of learning a new language, because then I don’t feel so bad about abandoning my art. I keep telling myself I will go back to art when I at least finish the grammar in Genki II.
Out of curiosity, I wonder what the cognitive benefits of art are vs learning a new language.
I feel like speaking is so much easier than books.
Hi, Linguistics Ph.D. student here. I am not able to speak on all the parts you mentioned because bilingualism is not my field of study, but I encourage you to seek counter-evidence/arguments of why bilingualism may make you smarter. There have been recent studies that show that there is actually no bilingual ‘advantage’ like this one 2020 study: [Bilingualism Affords No General Cognitive Advantages: A Population Study of Executive Function in 11,000 People](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797620903113?journalCode=pssa).
Granted, there are a lot of studies purporting that bilinguals are ‘smarter’ or have cognitive advantages, but not so many trying to disprove these. One reason is that bilingual ‘advantage’ research is highly backed and funded by the government, so more funding means more research within that domain. I also encourage you to question yourself, and expand upon what you mean by ‘smarter’. Do bilinguals have a better memory? Higher IQ? There are a lot of confounding variables which may affect this. For example, bilinguals may be from higher socio-economic thus have access to better education, where they are formally taught multiple languages.
Being bilingual has its advantages (ie, social, political, economic), but it does not mean it will make you smarter in other domains. A good analogy I learned recently from a professor in bilingualism is related to sports. A professional athlete may switch to a different sport for a time. During their time in the alternate sport, they may learn some new skills. By chance, some of these new skills may be transferable to their professional sport and could give them an advantage over other professional athletes. Here the athlete did not gain any ‘advantage’ outside the domain of sports, just within. The same can be said for bilinguals and language learning. It may be that bilinguals have a different skill set which allows them to learn languages better than monolinguals. This does not mean they can perform better at non-linguistic cognitive tasks, it just means they have a different set of skills available to them which assist them with learning new languages, thus better at learning languages.
I encourage you to remain skeptical and seek counter-arguments to bilingual ‘advantage’ research. Lmk if you have any questions, I can try to answer them, but again this is not my field of research within linguistics.