Does learning a language make you smarter?

Answer 1

It develops learning skills if you get to be fluent, and flexibility when you apply for a job, being bi or even tri lingual is a plus.

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Here are a few cognitive benefits of multilingualism that have been confirmed with well-respected scientific experiments and data surveys. There are many more brain health benefits to multilingualism that are currently being explored and the research looks promising, however I have only included several conclusions which have been extensively tested for accuracy with various addtional studies:

• Bilingual children show advanced metalinguistic understanding (the ability to recognise language as a process as well as a "thing") at an early age, especially in their control of language processing.
• Cognitive advantages appear in bilingual situations that involve systematic uses of the two languages, such as simultaneous acquisition settings or bilingual education. In plain English, this means if you recieve lessons in math or history (for example) in two different languages at the same time you will have greater understanding and retention of the concepts you have learned.
• Multilinguals have recently been proven to have superior logic and resoning skills (only IF they consider a problem in both languages however). The most likely explanation for this phenomenon is the theory that "framing" a problem in more than one way leads to greater perceptivness and therefore higher probablilty of finding a solution.
• "Emotional" intelligence (EQ), or the ability to understand and communicate effectively with others, is increased due to greater exposure to a variety of effective communication methods and styles.

A key point to these findings- the cognitive benefits of bilingualism seem to appear relatively early in the process of becoming bilingual and do not require high levels of bilingual proficiency nor the achievement of balanced bilingualism (when the speaker can speak both languages with equal fluency).

Although these benefits are most pronouced in children who get an early start learning a second or third language, adults who choose to become bilingual later in life most certainly have the ability to take advantage of these brain-boosting benefits as well.

Source: As communication specialist at Dino Lingo- languages for kids, it's my job to stay up to date on all the latest language aquisition research.