Bilingual people are more adept in picking up a foreign language than their monolingual counterparts, according to the latest research.

Their bilingual advantage persists even when the new language they study is completely different from the languages they already know.

“It’s often assumed that individuals who’ve learned multiple languages simply have a natural aptitude for learning languages,” said Viorica Marian, associate professor of communication sciences and disorders at Northwestern University (NU).

“While that is true in some cases, our research shows that the experience of becoming bilingual itself makes learning a new language easier,” said Marian.

Yes and no…  This, at first glance, appears to be a “duh, we knew that” issue.  As Dr. Marian states, the facility of L3 learning by bilinguals is often attributed to natural aptitude towards language learning, but it’s much more attributable to the greater linguistic awareness enjoyed by bilinguals.  Simply put, they have more resources (phonetically, grammatically, etc.) to pull from when learning the new language.  I’ve always told people that after about 3 languages, new ones become progressively easier…

However….

One cannot make the point blank assertion that bilingualism = improved language learning.  Bilinguals often first have to make a significant hurdle, depending upon how they first learned their L2.  I’ve noted that people who learn two or more languages as children can still struggle to learn a language as an adult.  This is largely due to the dramatic difference in learning styles between children and adults.  Children seem to literally absorb language.  They learn largely through observation, repetition, and deduction.  Adults learn (and are usually taught) in a much more analytical manner.  Studying a foreign language is a skill unto itself which child bilinguals won’t necessarily have learned, and thus, they are going to struggle in the same way as monolinguals studying their first language.  However, later in the course of study — once study habits develop — the natural advantages of bilinguals should start to kick in.

I believe I’ve told this story before on this blog, but honestly I can’t be bothered to troll through the old posts to look for it, but I saw this in action some years ago when I lived in Japan.  I observed two friends — a boy and a girl, both English/French bilinguals with no prior Japanese experience — struggling to learn Japanese.  While both were advancing slowly (Japanese is kindov tough!), the boy was (initially, at least) progressing much more quickly than the girl.  Given that they were putting roughly equal amounts of effort into learning, and that they had realtively equivalent amounts of input, it aroused my curiosity.  I started talking to them to get a handle on what the difference was, and in the end, what I determined was probably 99% to blame for the disparity was the fact that the boy had learned French (well!) largely as an adult (he had begun study in secondary school, but had only really sought mastery of the language in his twenties), whereas the girl had grown up speaking both (she had attended a French immersion school).  My discussions with them on what they were doing to learn Japanese revealed that the girl was floundering in trying to figure out how to learn a language, whereas the guy had immediately set about employing the same methods that he had put to the task of learning French.  Once the problem was identified, and some tips were laid out for the girl to facilitate adult language learning, her Japanese level started to progress markedly.  The point being that for every adult learner of a second language, the first task in language learning is learning “how to learn a foreign language…”

Speaking from personal experience…

I was raised in a bilingual environment (English and Spanish) in Gibraltar but I don’t really think that being exposed to two languages from an early age gave me any special advantage. Most people from Gibraltar speak both languages (though not always very well!) but many of them never seem to master a third language. Most of us had a compulsory 4 years of French classes but the general feeling I got was that most people either hated learning French or just weren’t very good at learning a foreign language. When I look at my own circle of friends, I’m the one of the few who learnt another language out of pure interest.

I’m more inclined to believe that my interest in foreign languages is the key factor here, not my bilingual background (my Spanish isn’t even that good when I think about it). The motivation to learn a new language and being confident enough to use it are a lot more important than the number of languages you speak at home.

I think that this is a ‘duh’ comment. Offering the young mind the opportunity to grow, providing the structure to enable connections and variations in thinking is a gift that certainly does enhance the aptitude for foreign languages. Our best translators and interpreters were exposed to two or more languages from a young age. It is interesting to note that we also find these people to be very successful in other aspects of life.