People generally only talk about the social and cultural benefits brought on by speaking more than one language, tending to forget any additional benefits this can have on the different cognitive processes.
An article published in the NY Times in March, describes how after reviewing a series of psychological studies based on the effects of bilingualism, results showed that children raised with at least two languages proved to have better execution functions than monolingual children. These are the functions in charge of the brain’s attention processes.
You can see Monica Kennedy: “When you dream in English you will be bilingual”
This ability to better manage the brain’s execution functions is due to the bilingual speaker’s developed skills in suppressing outside distractions and keeping focused on the main topic of interest. Being able to manage two language systems simultaneously provides the speaker with the capability to avoid having both systems interfere with each other while co
Probably the most important thing of all; it’s never too late to learn a second language in order to gain from the previously mentioned benefits.
Sourse: Edition 13 Aldea Magazine