Bilingual Benefits

[ysabetwordsmith]

.. include delaying Alzheimer's disease, and probably similar forms of cognitive decline.  This effect far outstrips the latest drug approved for that purpose.

1) Given a choice between a free treatment that requires a lot of work, and an expensive drug, I suspect that people who can obtain the drug will prefer it.  But the free option remains available to everyone.

2) Since proficiency is what matters, a great improvement to public health could be made by teaching all children a second language from birth or at least preschool, when it is possible to learn with native fluency.  I doubt that America has any interest in doing so.  But any parent could arrange it for their own kids, especially if there is a history of cognitive illness in the family.

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[goatgodschild]

Learning a language sounds more fun than Sudoku -- I don't like Sudoku at all.

For what it's worth, I have done quite a lot of Duolingo:
- Completed the Latin course, which isn't saying much, but I was proud of doing so all the same.
- Completed about half of the German course.
- Fought my way through some French.
- I started the Welsh course as well, but then I found out that it was completely useless, so I gave up on it.

I've thought about picking up some workbooks for myself, but have put it off.

Do you suppose that conlangs might be similarly useful to the mind?

[cmcmck]

I'm trilingual so this is good to know!

[fuzzyred]

I'm not actually fluent in any other language, though I suppose I might be minimally procficient in French and I'm working to improve that, plus I'm working on learning Esperanto, Hawaiian, German, and Polish. I don't know if that counts or not, but I'm having fun learning anyway.

[see_also_friend]

For low-cost language learning, one could try to set up a language exchange - pal up with someone who speaks your target language but wants to learn your native language.

For kids, hiring bilingual babysitters or childminders, and encouraging them to speak in their other language(s) while minding the children could work.