Why being bilingual is good for your brain | BBC Ideas

Hello from Mexico ! I had the chance to visit UK back in 1993, I visited the Grotto, Leads Castle and of course London. Ever since I continue studying english. I worked for a Britisk company named Crosfield Limited, UK. Thanks to this language I've been able to get better jobs here at Mexico City, thanks BBC of London for your kind support. Best regards: Jose Nicolas Segura Mendez. I also went to the Soho, and several different London locations and Museums which are just fantastic ! Viva Mexico, Viva UK too.

Who ever thought being bilingual was a disadvantage 🙃?

Bullshit on high level

That intro... How the fuck could anyone ever think that knowing more languages could in anyway be detrimental?

I speak 4 languages

The funny part of being bi/multilingual es que la gente piensa que você fala muitas línguas, ma in realtà, you just mix it all up and create your own language! 😅

Bilingual? Multilingual around 8 fluently

I’m bilingual . Love it.

i speak portuguese, english and spanish 😊

'When you learn a new language, you acquire a new soul' - love this!

I thought everyone was bilingual

Who ever said is bad to learn? Now that is stupid in any language!

I worked at a Family Restaurant and I had alot of International Customers who traded me a few Words from their Languages. I am glad to say I traded them some of my Navajo Language for like 7 to 9 Phrases from their Languages. Had alot of French and Italian Speakers mostly, but we also had Navajo, Hopi, Apache, Ojibiwe, Teywa, Cree, Sioux, Portuguese, Spanish, Hungarian, Czech, Russian, Poland, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Farsi, German, Dutch, Danish, Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Tamil, Tatar, Swahili, Ibo, Xhosa, Turkish, Israeli, Somoan, Fiji, and Hawaiian Speakers.

I had to use the James Curtis “Hepburn” Romanization System to absorb the words they say faster.

Honestly I wish I could’ve stayed there for more than a Year or 2 and learned / encountered more International Speakers. But I was earning to much Money and it made my Coworkers jealous lmao 🤣

😍😍😍😍😍

Alhamdulillah by the grace of Allah I speak 4 languages Arabic, English, Urdu & Tamil. Because of this I can convey the & urge people to do good.

I speak 3 languages, and I also invented my own, which can only be written not spoken, its more like a code language.

Asians laughing in the corner xd

How do you call people who barely speak one language? Americans!!!

Learning a second language helps you to improve your native one!

There are some trilingual people who have never studied the other two languages. They speak: their own language, stupidity, and nonsense!!!

Once you learn a second language, then you can learn any other language!!! The brain just goes through the same exercise of identifying structures and language patterns again and again!!!

😊

I can speak Spanish my mother tongue, English and German fluently, know some French and Italian. I just love languages. My weak point is that I'm absent-minded so I easily forget things.

Every indian is more than bilingual 😊

I don’t know what it’s like to know only 1 language. Growing up I learned both English and Arabic simultaneously. Two languages is the default to me.

Language expresses a world view. Different languages describe the world from different perspectives.

I was monolingual until age 15 when I learned spanish until proficiency. Than after that I learned portuguese, than Italian before I was 18 and after turning 18 I started learning french. What I have noticed is remembering words and thus learning a language has become significantly more challenging since I became an adult

Polyglot here. My native tongue is Spanish. I learned English at school and later added Italian. I can comprehend and get by in Portuguese and French. I’m always interested in these topics because they uncover the mysteries that lie within multilingual neurological activity.

Congratulations to all the multilingual commenters. I only speak English. I’d like to learn a second language but having a hard time justifying it. There are lots of Spanish speakers where I live but they won’t speak to me in Spanish, they want to speak English. I’d like to learn French but there’s absolutely nobody here who speaks it. Is it worth the time and effort just to go on a 2-week vacation to Paris? Any suggestions or insight is welcomed!

In Indonesia commonly learn 3 languages, first learn primary language, second is local language that depends where do you live, and third is English which very important in education system. The rest of it just learn any language do you really want to learn. For a person who's love anime and manga like me, japan was my fourth language and i still learning.

I'm an early bilingual person, but the U.S. education system put me into this specialized English learning program in my middle school years because they assumed I was a late bilingual kid because both of my parents are Mexican immigrants and only spoke Spanish at home. I have older sisters as well as older cousins who spoke English all of the time so I was exposed to the language since I was in my mother's womb. Despite the fact that English was my strongest subject and I don't recall ever not knowing how to speak or understand English, they put me into the program assuming I didn't know simply because both of my parents were immigrants who only spoke Spanish. I am convinced it was due to racism or bigotry or prejudice and I would not be surprised if they did it to punish my parents for not being fluent English speakers.

I speak 5 without school

true about the emotional first language I am Spanish- German bilingual and Spanish is my language of the hard. ❤

Many Indians speak minimum 3 languages, many speaks 4-6languages

The Philippines has two official languages : English and Filipino. We grew using Filipino at home and English in formal settings.

Y luego están los ultraderechistas y los fascistas, que están en contra de sociedades plurilingües y que reprimen cualquier lengua que no sea la suya. Por ejemplo, la derecha española, que está en contra de todo lo que no sea español. Catetismo con mayúsculas.

The weirdest thing to me is when I remember a word in my second language and I can't in my first one. Happens all the time with the word termite. 😅

Wow, didn't know that. Most of the people here are bilingual, if not trilingual. And everything looks normal than what the science said

This explains why my Myers Briggs results are so different in English and Italian.

Good morning how's it going today 🌅 I speak 5 languages french English Spanish Portuguese creole, I want to speak Italian ❤ I am polyglot

If you dont know at least two languages, you’re seriously missing out on life!

I wouldn't say I speak a second language - I am low B1 level in french - but when I get overwhelmed I express my emotions in french. It helps a lot, even if I'm not able to actually say the words and I just voice them in my head. It's almost like taking a step back from my emotions by switching my brain over to another language.

I'm later multilingual, since I was born at a monolingual home. I started to learn english at school at the age of 7, spanish at the age of 10 and greek at the age of 24. Now I'm learning italian, arabic and turkish.
I'm so happy❤

Me being able to speak 9 languages and forgetting what i was looking for in the kitchen

I grew up in rural Idaho and knew nothing but English until I signed up for a program that sent me to France. Those early adult years were a formative time, and I still find that speaking and hearing French brings back memories from that part of life. In my later studies and work, I came to know and speak Mandarin. Like the video mentions, I am probably more logical and less emotional when doing so, because I use it primarily for work. Meanwhile, I watch my fully bilingual daughter bounce between English and Tagalog and I find it amazing how she picks up the pronunciation and even cultural nuance almost effortlessly.

I like to learn a new language because it helps me get to know people and learn more the new cultures

Here in india all literate people are trilingual

Meanwhile a lot of 🇺🇸 seem to frown on being bilingual… well, that’s when Spanish is the second language that is.

Bilingualism is a definitely a gift.