Is being bilingual good for your brain? Perhaps

5 hours ago 2

By The Economist

July 4, 2025 — 7.00pm

Reams of papers have been published on the cognitive advantages of multilingualism. Beyond the conversational doors it can open, multilingualism is supposed to improve “executive function”, a loose concept that includes the ability to ignore distractions, plan complex tasks and update beliefs as new information arrives. Most striking, numerous studies have even shown that bilinguals undergo a later onset of dementia, perhaps of around four years, on average. But some of these studies have failed to replicate, leaving experts wondering whether the effect is real, and if so, what exactly it consists of.

The good news is that it is never too late to start learning a new language, if you want your brain to benefit. A study from 2019 showed that although a moderate amount of language learning in adults does not boost things like executive function, it does mitigate age-related decline.

Knowing more than one language is beneficial, but exactly how is still not widely accepted.

The biggest benefits seem to come to those who master their second languages fully. That in turn is usually because they speak the two as natives, or at least have spoken them on a near-daily basis for a long time. A bit of university French does not, unfortunately, convey the same advantages as deep knowledge and long experience. Switching languages frequently in the course of a day (or conversation) may be particularly important.

Studies of interpreters and translators have provided some of the strongest evidence for a bilingual advantage. For example, they are faster at repeatedly jumping back and forth between simple addition and subtraction problems than monolinguals, suggesting generally better cognitive control.

But elsewhere is “a forest of confounding variables”, says Mark Antoniou of Western Sydney University. Bilinguals are not like monolinguals in lots of ways. The child of diplomats, raised in a foreign language abroad, may have cognitive and educational advantages that have nothing to do with bilingualism. At the other end of the socioeconomic ladder, though, studies have found striking evidence that in poorer parts of the world multilingual people show the strongest advantages from speaking several languages. Where schooling is scant, researchers surmise that bilingualism exercises children’s brains in a way that their schooling may not.

Age plays a role, too. Studies suggest that the effects of languages on the brain are stronger for young children and the old than they are for young adults. Bilingual tots seem to outperform in cognitive development in the early years, but their monolingual classmates may catch up with them later.

One meta-analysis on the topic revealed that 25 studies out of 45 found a bilingual advantage in children younger than six, while only 17 found them in children aged six to 12.

At the other end of life, Ellen Bialystok of York University, in Canada, the godmother of the field, has compared the cognitive protection bilingualism offers to the coverage of a piece of bread afforded by a slice of holey Swiss cheese. Doing other things that are good for the brain, such as exercise, is akin to stacking the slices. Their holes occur in different places, and thus collectively offer greater protection.

But all these studies take for granted the uncontroversial mental superpower that you get from language study: being able to talk to people you could not have spoken to, or understood, otherwise. Even if you cannot pick your parents and be fluent from infancy, that should be more than enough reason to give it a go.

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