I put my hand up: I didn't read the paper (just the abstract). Their findings surprised me.
I speak (quite badly, nowadays) French and German, as well as my mother-tongue, English. I'm quite sure that my understanding of my own language is greatly enhanced by knowing French and German. And I'd be very surprised if a better knowledge of your native language doesn't enhance at least some aspects of cognition.
But this is a particular constellation of languages: if you exclude modern loanwords, it seems to me that the flow of vocabulary has been mainly from French and German into English, rather than vice-versa.
Decades ago, I did a class in Mandarin (now completely forgotten, except a few phrases). I don't think knowledge of Mandarin improved my understanding of my mother tongue at all.
So my surprise is that the researchers found no cognitive enhancement at all.
Perhaps their cognition test battery excludes those aspects of cognition that depend on thinking with words? It seems to me that I think mainly with words.
I put my hand up: I didn't read the paper (just the abstract). Their findings surprised me.
I speak (quite badly, nowadays) French and German, as well as my mother-tongue, English. I'm quite sure that my understanding of my own language is greatly enhanced by knowing French and German. And I'd be very surprised if a better knowledge of your native language doesn't enhance at least some aspects of cognition.
But this is a particular constellation of languages: if you exclude modern loanwords, it seems to me that the flow of vocabulary has been mainly from French and German into English, rather than vice-versa.
Decades ago, I did a class in Mandarin (now completely forgotten, except a few phrases). I don't think knowledge of Mandarin improved my understanding of my mother tongue at all.
So my surprise is that the researchers found no cognitive enhancement at all.
Perhaps their cognition test battery excludes those aspects of cognition that depend on thinking with words? It seems to me that I think mainly with words.