105: Learning Journal #9

[Daniel Kwon]

Growing up as a bilingual, I was very interested in reading on whether or not bilinguals were actually smarter than those who grew up learning only one language. The reading discussed how bilinguals, while not necessarily more intelligence than their counterparts, had a stronger portion of the brain that dealt more with decision-making and control. This occurs because as children growing with two languages, they have to constantly switch over to the other language and decide which word, grammatical structure, or phrase they must use that is appropriate for the context of the situation. I know this occurred to me multiple times growing up, and sometimes I would accidentally use a word in other language than I intended. For example, when frustrated, sometimes instead of expressing my thoughts in English, it came out in Korean.