Bilingual

Bilingual

What Bilingual Has Meant to Me

Viewpoint

Does being bilingual help preserve cognition? Our columnist, in his 80s now, thinks so, and is a believer in the adage, "Use it or lose it."

Bilingual

Do Complex Tasks Train Your Brain to be More Efficient?

Musicians and people who speak multiple languages are faster at identifying sound location and type but show differences in speed of recalling past sounds.

Bilingual

The Cognitive Benefits of Being Bilingual

Today, more of the world’s population is bilingual or multilingual than monolingual. In addition to facilitating cross-cultural communication, this trend also positively affects cognitive abilities. Researchers have shown that the bilingual brain can have better attention and task-switching capacities than the monolingual brain, thanks to its developed ability to inhibit one language while using another. In addition, bilingualism has positive effects at both ends of the age spectrum: Bilingual children as young as seven months can better adjust to environmental changes, while bilingual seniors can experience less cognitive decline.