From the course: The Power of Language: How Multilingualism Transforms Our Minds (Book Bite)
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Becoming bilingual transforms our minds
From the course: The Power of Language: How Multilingualism Transforms Our Minds (Book Bite)
Becoming bilingual transforms our minds
The third insight is that learning a second language and becoming bilingual transforms our minds. It changes our brains and our identities, how we feel, what we remember, the decisions we make, and ideas and insights we have across languages. Bilinguals become slightly different versions of themselves when they switch languages. You may have heard the saying, "To know another language is to possess another soul." Knowing another language changes how we perceive the world, not only figuratively, but also quite literally, down to the mechanics of our eye movements. For example, it is well-known in psycholinguistics that words that share a formal meaning are quite activated in the mind. When an English speaker is being told to pick up a marker and there are marbles on the desk, they are likely to make eye movements to the marbles because marker and marbles share word onset. When you speak another language, form overlap can be not only within the language, but also across languages. In…
Contents
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Introducing Viorica Marian44s
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Viorica Marian introduces "The Power of Language"1m 35s
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Most of the world's population is bilingual or multilingual1m 1s
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Our reality is shaped by the languages we know2m 26s
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Becoming bilingual transforms our minds2m 47s
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Multilingualism changes us at the broader level as a society3m 34s
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Knowing multiple codes of communication may hold the key to humanity’s future1m 47s
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