Full transcript
0:00[Music]
0:00it used to be thought that being
0:02bilingual was a bad thing that it would
0:04confuse or hold people back especially
0:06children turns out we couldn't have been
0:08more wrong learning new languages is an
0:11exercise of the mind it's the mental
0:14equivalent of going to a gym every
0:17[Music]
0:21day in the bilingual brain all our
0:24languages are active all at the same
0:27time the continue effort of suppressing
0:30a language when speaking another along
0:33with a mental challenge that comes with
0:35regularly switching between languages
0:38exercises our brain it improves our
0:41concentration problem solving memory and
0:44in turn our
0:48creativity it's now widely accepted that
0:50there are huge benefits to being
0:52bilingual a key breakthrough came back
0:54in 2007 in Toronto when Ellen B alisto
0:57and her team made a discovery that shook
0:59the scientific community and has massive
1:01real world
1:05implications it was the first study
1:08which suggested that bilingual people
1:11people who speak more than one language
1:13develop dementia four to 4 and a half
1:17years later than those who don't it was
1:20a powerful confirmation of the idea of
1:23cognitive
1:24Reserve now what is cognitive Reserve
1:28cognitive Reserve is the idea that
1:30people develop a reserve of thinking
1:31abilities and this protects them against
1:33losses that can occur through aging and
1:35disease as well as delaying the onset of
1:38dementia bilingual people have been
1:40shown to recover significantly better
1:42after a stroke learning anything new
1:44helps build cognitive Reserve but
1:46there's something special about language
1:49language is particularly Broad and
1:52complex it affects ideas and Concepts
1:55perception different sounds the more
1:58complex certain skill is the more likely
2:02it is to have a positive effect on
2:05cognitive
2:07Reserve so when is the best time to
2:09learn a new language well here's part of
2:13the
2:13answer the brain is a complex set of new
2:17networks when you're learning a new
2:19language as a child you're building new
2:22[Music]
2:28networks but when you learn a language
2:31later in life you have to modify the
2:34existing
2:36networks and make more
2:39connections because learning languages
2:41later in life can be more challenging
2:44the benefits can also be
2:46greater but a 2023 study at Great Orman
2:50Street suggests this is just part of the
2:53story so we invited three groups of
2:55children that were aged 8 to 10 and we
2:58had a group of children who were
2:59monolingual
3:00a group of children who had early
3:02exposure to Greek and English from birth
3:04they were our early bilinguals and
3:06finally we had a group who had been
3:08exposed to English between the ages of 2
3:10and five and they were our later
3:12bilinguals so what we did that no one
3:15had done before is that we asked the
3:16children to line the scanner while doing
3:19nothing and just staring at a cross and
3:21during this we measured their brain
3:23activity so what we found that was
3:25really exciting for us is that our early
3:27bilingual group had the strongest
3:29connectivity in a network at rest and
3:32these group of regions are regions that
3:34light up when we're doing nothing and
3:36just mind wandering a little bit like if
3:38you're going to the gym every day your
3:39muscles might look bigger at rest where
3:42similarly your brain might be better
3:44connected at rest because you are
3:45learning a language early and this is
3:47something no one had found
3:49before and there's more one lesser known
3:53behavioral effect of bilingualism in
3:56both children and adults is the ability
3:59to see the other people's perspective or
4:03to understand that it is possible to
4:05have different points of view recent
4:07Studies have also found that people tend
4:11to react more emotionally in their first
4:14language and more rational in a more
4:16abstract way in the second and the way
4:20it is usually explained is that the
4:22first language is the one which we use
4:25to speak with family with friends in
4:27informal settings the second language is
4:30usually learned at school at the
4:32University at
4:35work scientists are discovering new
4:37upsides to be in bilingual all the time
4:40and it's not just our brains that
4:42benefit learning new languages and
4:45speaking more than one language is very
4:47important not only for individuals but
4:49also for societies learning new
4:51languages can open doors to new cultural
4:56experiences life opportunities different
4:59people different communities and
5:02different ways of seeing the
5:05world and with that we'll say a
5:08[Music]
5:12final
5:16goodbye
5:18bye poil vow