Today I saw several people tweeting an article on Twitter about the advantages of being bilingual. It was an interesting article, which also mentioned that people who are bilingual can cope better with Alzheimers if they were to get it. Very interesting, but I’ve read this so many times, I almost clicked to get away from the article ……….
…. until my eye caught the following question and answer:
Q. One would think bilingualism might help with multitasking — does it?
A. Yes, multitasking is one of the things the executive control system handles. We wondered, “Are bilinguals better at multitasking?” So we put monolinguals and bilinguals into a driving simulator. Through headphones, we gave them extra tasks to do — as if they were driving and talking on cellphones. We then measured how much worse their driving got. Now, everybody’s driving got worse. But the bilinguals, their driving didn’t drop as much. Because adding on another task while trying to concentrate on a driving problem, that’s what bilingualism gives you — though I wouldn’t advise doing this.
Now, THAT is interesting!
Most of us like to be able to multitask, some of us say, we’re good at it, others wish they could do it.
Now you can help it along by learning German, although the article does mention that just learning a language is not enough, you must use it too.
