Learning another language appears to slow brain ageing by up to 13 years

giuliomagnifico

13 years if you speak 4 languages, 6 years for two languages: > The study found that those who spoke two languages had brains that appeared around six years younger than those who spoke only one language. People who spoke three languages had brains that appeared around seven years younger, and for those who spoke four languages, their brains appeared about 13 years younger.

KashifNY

Learning is the brains way of exercising, though I believe you genuinely need to want to learn something which helps in the slowing of ageing part

libertine

One thing that stood out to me some years ago and I found interesting is that depending on the language I'm using my thought patterns kind of change. Putting in another term, I think differently in different languages.

zaik

Link to the actual research?

lapcat

> they could not rule out the potential influence of other factors that may have an impact on the brain, such as lifestyle and social engagement. Social engagement has been shown in many ways to be crucial to health.

Qem

> The researchers took account of factors such as people’s age, sex and education, but cautioned that they could not rule out the potential influence of other factors that may have an impact on the brain, such as lifestyle and social engagement. Perhaps it's just a correlation. Number of spoken linguages may correlate with income, frequent travel, sociability, or other factors that improve or filtre for health, brain health included.

ChrisArchitect

[dupe] Discussion on source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48805652

meristohm

Years ago, when I was considering putting effort and time into learning more computer programming languages, I realized I cared far more about learning other human languages: I was a recent parent, and the importance of strong, positive bonds with other humans was dawning on me, along with an appreciation for mortality. So, I dropped a few energy levels in the computing realm and jumped into learning more spoken languages, using Anki, library books, podcasts, movies in the target languages (thanks to kanopy, another public-library resource paid for by tax money), and, more recently, Clozemaster and Mango (through the local public library! and they have some indigenous north american languages, but none from the region where I currently live; I'll seek local help for that).