105: Journal #7

[Molly Cramer]

I also read the article in the New York Times demonstrating that people who speak two languages are actually smarter than those who only speak one. From my own experiences I know that when you can speak more than one language it opens up possibilities for expressing yourself more clearly/more exactly and also for greater understanding of the world. I know that sometimes when I hear the Anderssons speaking Swedish they might jump to English every once in a while in order to capture a thought they couldn't in Swedish (much like you would say the English word for frustrated in Turkish in order to express that emotion). I also found it interesting in the article that bilingual people are actually quicker to solve mental problems and are less likely to develop Alzheimer's when they grow old. This makes sense because people who are bilingual are more likely to have to use more of the synapses in their brain when jumping from one language to the other. Also, I find it interesting that the article mentioned that traditionally in education people thought that knowing two or more languages would actually be detrimental to learning rather than make your kids smarter. Personally I wish I had started to learn another language earlier in the my life when it would have been easier to acquire. I would be very important to me for my kids to learn both languages but I do understand where those theorists were coming from because I once babysat a three year old whose family members spoke Dutch, English, and Arabic and he never knew in what language he was communicating and often couldn't figure out why I didn't understand his requests! However, I think it's obvious that this child is going to have a very enriching cultural home life and background that will likely make him "smarter" than the average person who only speaks one language.