I'm pretty dumb as bilinguals go.

by Anonymous 10 months ago

Would you explain your point? Why ? :(

by Anonymous 10 months ago

>By speaking and comprehending multiple language, you obviously expand your horizon of thinking, are able to understand multiple meanings and you can seem interesting in the people's eye I'm dumber for not even getting the right word in the correct language and fumble between two languages. Not sure how bilingual understand multiple meanings. Could you explain this one? Also, knowing a language someone else doesn't know, isn't the interesting you're looking for. I also have no idea how interesting is correlated to intelligence.

by Anonymous 10 months ago

Well, it gives you a plus since you know a language that not many people speak. I'm not talking about Spanish here, since it is the second spoken language in US. I am talking about other countries. And it is perfectly fine if you don't know the meaning of a word. At least you have an advantage over monolinguals since your brain is now able to speak two languages. It feels like a superpower to have. And bilinguals, in general understand multiple meanings by learning multiple languages. That's my point.

by Anonymous 10 months ago

intelligence isn't just how much stuff you know. A dumb person who lives for 1000 years will learn more than we ever will but will still be dumb at the end of it. I agree with all your arguments, in that being multilingual is an advantage, but I don't see how it can be a reflection of one's intellect. It doesn't seem right to call 40% of the worlds population automatically less intellegent.

by Anonymous 10 months ago

Smarter? No, that's absurd. While there's probably some baseline level of intelligence required to learn multiple languages, it is not that high - given that billions of people are bilingual and it's nearly universal in some countries. That suggests it's cultural, not a sign of elite intelligence. Can it help you in international business, science, or other fields? Sure Whether learning multiple languages was something common in your childhood culture or something you choose to do later, I don't think it's ever a bad idea. But there's no causative relationship between adding a language and an increase in IQ scores.

by Anonymous 10 months ago

Most people who are bilingual learned a second language as a child. Research has shown that it's much easier to learn language as a child. It honestly has less to do with intelligence than timing.

by Anonymous 10 months ago

I agree my high school English teacher told me so.

by Anonymous 10 months ago

Agree. It is unpopular to think bilingual are better than single language speakers. It is also true that speaking two languages at a young age (2-4 years) really expands your mental abilities.

by Anonymous 10 months ago

This is objectively false and almost certainly just the OP trying to hop on the 'hur dur America bad" train. I feel like being bi lingual is good, but only really useful if the extra language(s) is/are one(s) that are widely spoken. For example a former coworker of mine lamented the fact that he could speak English and Nepali since it barely counted as bilingual considering how useless knowing Nepali would be for almost anyone who doesn't live in Nepal.

by Anonymous 10 months ago