Looks like Fluent members are on the same wavelength, as usual. Kim and I were talking the other day about friends who are fluent in two languages, but find it hard to switch back from one to the other after extended periods of time. (I have a friend who grew up speaking both English and Spanish, but considers herself to be more fluent in English. She goes to Colombia once or twice a year and speaks only Spanish for about three weeks. When she comes back to the U.S., she finds it very difficult to switch back into English.) Then I got this e-mail a few days ago from Angela, who said something really similar:
"...Anyway, I was thinking about how different languages sometimes utilize different parts of the brain. I realized that whenever I think in English, I have to go with the English pronounciation and whatnot. Even when I'm reading about something Chinese and I know the Chinese equivalent for the English word, I have to use the English version. It's most noticeable with city names and proper nouns, but if I start using in one language, it takes a conscious effort to switch. I guess this is a part of why I don't really understand people who can combine languages, like Spanglish. For me, when I took at one language, I can't translate it word for word. I can get the gist of it, but that's about it. If you want me to translate Chinese to English, it's going to sound terrible. On the other hand, if you give me both translations, I can tell you if the translator did a good job or not. It's almost as if I need to be in a different mindset in order to speak a different language."
So I guess I have a bunch of questions to throw out there:
1. Has anyone had or does anyone know of a similar experience (having trouble "switching" languages)?
2. Why does it happen? Do different languages actually utilize different parts of the brain (in the way Chinese and English reading do, according to the dyslexia studies we looked at last month)? How and why does the brain "get used to" operating in a specific language?
I want to find some research to make sure what we seem to be sensing isn't just folk psychology... but please feel free to weigh in (especially if you find info on the web or otherwise) so we can get to the bottom of this!
--Amy
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I was reasearching bilingualism and found an article that discusses a study that some claim suggests that bilingualism can delay the onset of dementia in the elderly. The woman in the article, Prof. Bialystok, says that using two languages has you engage parts of the mind in a way that exercises them and keeps the brain healthy. I think this is an intersting idea: speaking more than one language, and having to think about switching back and forth between the two, leads to a degree of mental "fitness".
However, the information they give about the trial makes the study seem totally inconclusive. They only had 184 subjects in a single experiemnt, and from what I know from stats, that is enough to have me dismiss the results. A study this small just isn't credible. I would like to see more research on the topic so we can see some numbers that are more conclusive.
The article is available at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10954.html
--Erica
Science!
This study was done to map out the different regions of the brain used for monolingual and bilingual subjects. Beyond the abstract, a lot of the neurological terms are over my head but the conclusion is very interesting: "Primary and secondary languages differ in
anatomical distribution."
I also found this really recent study that delt with language conflict, and basically found that "both languages of bilinguals are activated when they read the words from their second language. Importantly, bilinguals are not able to suppress the nontarget language to avoid interference." So I guess I'll always 'think' in English? The whole thing can be found here .
There is a ton of research on this stuff...I recommend going to
and typing in "bilingual" or "bilingualism", there's a lot out there.
--Alison
Zinna, your research skillz never fail to amaze me. So apparently our feelings are backed by science, for once. Switching back to another language requires using a different part of the brain, and I guess that's what makes the transition difficult (like working muscles you haven't used in a while, haha)?
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