Bilingualism: the Benefits

As bilingualism is often a necessity within multilingual families, added benefits are not really needed to convince people to raise their children in two or more languages. For families like my own however (native speakers of the majority language), learning about those benefits did tip the scales in favour of bilingualism. So what different benefits are there to bilingualism? In this post I will tell you the most important ones, divided in several categories.

It is important to note that even though some studies found these benefits, other studies sometimes found no added benefits of bilingualism. To my knowledge, there are no studies showing negative effects. So even if you might not have all of these benefits, speaking multiple languages won’t harm you.

Linguistic benefits

• Learning languages: For many bilingual people, it is easier to learn a new language once they already have learned their first 2 (or 3) languages. This is especially the case if the new language is similar to one of their native ones.
• Meta linguistics: Bilingual children learn at a very young age that there is such a thing as a language. They can switch to the appropriate language around 1.5 years and are able to think and talk about languages around 2 years. In comparison, monolinguals start developing this around 3 years of age.
• First language improves: As children learn a new language, they typically also improve their first or native language. This is especially so with sequential bilingualism or when actively learning a new language (eg. at school) as you learn about rules you never considered in your mother tongue.

Social benefits

• Connecting with people: Knowing more than 1 language lets you make and keep relationships you otherwise couldn’t have made. Think about all the people you can connect with in different languages. This is especially important for immigrant families and multicultural families.
• Cultural awareness: Speaking a second (or third etc) language opens doors to other countries and people. This also means you get acces to other cultures and broaden your perspective. Cultural sensitivity and diversity is always a good thing.

Cognitive benefits

• Executive functions: Research suggests that there can be an improvement of several cognitive functions, and in particular the executive functions. These functions are mental skills used in daily life such as working memory, planning and time management.
• Creativity: Being bilingual can make you more creative, and also give you better visual skills and abstract thinking. All of those skills are great to have in your personal but also professional life.
• Self control: Although this one is part of the executive functions, I am mentioning this one separately. As bilingual people constantly suppress one language when speaking the other, this is an enormous training for your brain. This suppression, or self control, also goes beyond the usage of languages to being able to control other behaviours and thoughts.

Career benefits

• School performance: We already established the cognitive benefits above. Because of this, or perhaps other reasons, some studies show that bilingual children perform slightly better in school. They are also more likely to continue studying in higher education.
• Career chances: Speaking another language can help you get a job by making you stand out in a job application. For some jobs, being bilingual is essential. Think about working abroad or working in multicultural settings. However, also when not specifically needed, employers can be more likely to hire an bilingual.

Health benefits

• Later onset of dementia: Quite some studies have been done on bilingualism in regard to age related problems. As actively using more than one language boosts your cognitive skills, it makes sense that all that braintraining can also result in benefits later in life. Research found that in bilinguals the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s happens up to 5 years later in bilinguals.

To conclude this post, it is important to note that even though a certain benefit of bilingualism exists, not all are noticeable in every day life. All children develop differently and that is perfectly fine. It’s not possible to make your child more “intelligent” by adding a language to the mix, so don’t bother. Being bilingual is a gift in itself and may come with these added bonuses. In the end, the biggest benefit of all is simply the ability to communicate in more than 1 language.