It used to be thought that being bilingual was a bad thing – that it would confuse or hold people back, especially children. It turns out, we couldn’t have been more wrong.

Learning new languages is an exercise of the mind. It’s the mental equivalent of going to a gym every day.

In the bilingual brain, all our languages are active, all at the same time. The continual effort of suppressing a language when speaking another, along with the mental challenge that comes with regularly switching between languages, exercises our brain. It improves our concentration, problem-solving, memory, and in turn, our creativity.

It’s now widely accepted that there are huge benefits to being bilingual. A key breakthrough came back in 2007 in Toronto, when Ellen Bialystok and her team made a discovery that shook the scientific community – and has massive real-world implications.

It was the first study which suggested that bilingual people, people who speak more than one language, develop dementia four to four-and-a-half years later than those who don’t. It was a powerful confirmation of the idea of cognitive reserve.

Now, what is cognitive reserve? Cognitive reserve is the idea that people develop a reserve of thinking abilities, and this protects them against losses that can occur through ageing and disease. As well as delaying the onset of dementia, bilingual people have been shown to recover significantly better after a stroke. Learning anything new helps build cognitive reserve. But there’s something special about language.

Language is particularly broad and complex. It affects ideas and concepts, perception, different sounds. The more complex a certain skill is, the more likely it is to have a positive effect on cognitive reserve.

So, when is the best time to learn a new language? Well, here’s part of the answer. The brain is a complex set of neural networks. When you’re learning a new language as a child, you’re building new networks. But when you learn a language later in life, you have to modify the existing networks and make more connections. Because learning languages later in life can be more challenging, the benefits can also be greater.

But a 2023 study at Great Ormond Street suggests this is just part of the story.

So, we invited three groups of children that were aged eight to ten. We had a group of children who were monolinguals. A group of children who had early exposure to Greek and English from birth … … they were our early bilinguals. And finally, we had a group who had been exposed to English between the age of two and five, and they were our later bilinguals. So, what we did that no-one had done before, is that we asked the children to lie in the scanner while doing nothing, and just staring at a cross. And during this, we measured their brain activity. So, what we found that was really exciting for us is that our early bilingual group had the strongest connectivity in the network at rest. And this group of regions are regions that light up when we’re doing nothing and just mind-wandering. A little bit like if you’re going to the gym every day, your muscles might look bigger at rest. Well, similarly, your brain might be better connected at rest, because you are learning a language early. And this is something no-one had found before.

And there’s more.

One lesser-known behavioural effect of bilingualism in both children and adults is the ability to see the other people’s perspective, or to understand that it is possible to have different points of view.

Recent studies have also found that people tend to react more emotionally in their first language, and more rationally, in a more abstract way, in their second. And the way it is usually explained is that the first language is the one which we use to speak with family, with friends – in informal settings. The second language is usually learned at school, at the university, at work.

Scientists are discovering new upsides to being bilingual all the time. And it’s not just our brains that benefit.

Learning new languages, and speaking more than one language, is very important – not only for individuals, but also for societies.

Learning new languages can open doors to new cultural experiences, life opportunities.

Different people, different communities, and different ways of seeing the world.

And with that, we’ll say a final… bye!
(End)

• Bilingual (adjective): able to speak two languages equally well.
• To hold someone back (phrasal verb): to stop someone developing as well as they should.
• To turn out (phrasal verb): to happen or end in a particular way, especially unexpectedly.
• An equivalent (noun): something that has the same value, purpose, etc. of something else.
• To suppress something (verb): to prevent something from happening or being expressed.
• To switch (verb): to change suddenly or completely, from one thing to another.
• In turn (idiom): because of that.
• Widely (adverb): commonly, by many people.
• A breakthrough (noun): an important discovery or event that helps improve a situation.
• To shake something (verb): to make something less certain or strong.
• Real-world (adjective): happening in the world and in reality, not in a book, on the internet, etc.
• An implication (noun): the effect that an action will have on something else in the future.
• Dementia (noun): a medical condition that affects memory and mental abilities in the elderly.
• A confirmation (noun): a statement or proof that something is true.
• Cognitive (adjective): connected with thinking or conscious mental processes.
• Reserve (noun): the act of keeping something until it is needed.
• To occur (verb): to happen (especially of unexpected events).
• Ageing (noun): the process of getting older.
• An onset (noun): the moment at which something begins, especially something unpleasant.
• To recover (verb): to become completely well again after an illness or injury.
• A stroke (noun): a sudden serious illness when a blood vessel in the brain bursts or is blocked.
• Broad (adjective): including a wide range of things.
• A perception (noun): a thought, belief, or opinion.
• A neural network (noun): a group of connected nerve cells in the body that send signals to each other.
• To modify something (verb): to change something slightly, especially to improve it.
• A monolingual (noun): a person who speaks only one language.
• Exposure (noun): the fact of experiencing something because of being in a situation or place.
• A scanner (noun): a device for making images of the inside of the body.
• To stare at something (verb): to look at something for a long time.
• To light up (phrasal verb): to start to be used and become active.
• Mind-wandering (noun): the activity of letting your mind think about different things.
• Lesser-known (adjective): not as popular or famous as something else.
• A perspective (noun): a particular way of thinking about something.
• A point of view (noun): a perspective or way of thinking about something.
• To tend to do something (verb): to be likely to behave in a particular way.
• Emotionally (adverb): in a way that is full of strong feelings.
• Rationally (adverb): in a way that is based on reason and clear thought, instead of emotions.
• Abstract (adjective): general, not connected to personal feelings.
• An upside (noun): an advantage of a situation.
• To open doors (idiom): to make things possible that were not possible before.

In this text, there are several examples of the impersonal passive. We can use the impersonal passive to report what an unspecified group of people said. This passive form is often used with reporting verbs such as: accept, believe, allege, claim, consider, expect, know, report, say, think, understand etc.

Forms of the impersonal passive:

1. It + be + past participle + (that) + subject + verb
   This structure introduces a statement about what is reported or believed:
   • ‘It is claimed that the artifact dates back to the Stone Age.’
   • ‘It is said that the author lives in a remote village.’
   • ‘It is understood that the negotiations will resume tomorrow.’
2. Someone/something + be + past participle + infinitive
   This structure focuses on the subject of the report or belief, followed by an infinitive:
   • ‘The artifact is claimed to date back to the Stone Age.’
   • ‘The author is said to live in a remote village.’
   • ‘The negotiations are understood to resume tomorrow.’

Types of infinitives used in the impersonal passive:

• Simple infinitive (for present/future actions):
  ‘The meeting is expected to start at 10 a.m.’
• Perfect infinitive (for past actions):
  ‘The castle is believed to have been built in the 12th century.’
• Continuous infinitive (for ongoing actions):
  ‘The scientist is thought to be conducting an important experiment.’

Examples in the text:

• It used to be thought that being bilingual was a bad thing: it + used to be (be) + thought (past participle) + that + being bilingual (subject) + was (verb) … the impersonal passive is used here to suggest how people previously thought that speaking two or more languages was a disadvantage.
• It’s now widely accepted that there are huge benefits to being bilingual: it + ‘s (be) + accepted (past participle) + that + there (dummy subject) + are (verb) … the impersonal passive is used here (using ‘there’ as a dummy subject) to suggest that people today commonly believe that speaking two or more languages is an advantage.
• … bilingual people have been shown to recover significantly better after a stroke: bilingual people (someone) + have been (be) + shown (past participle) + to recover (infinitive) … This impersonal passive focuses on the subject (bilingual people) of the belief, using the simple infinitive to show current views.
• … the way it is usually explained is that the first language is the one which we use to speak with family: [the way] it + is (be) + explained (past participle) + [is] that + the first language (subject) + is (verb) … the impersonal passive is combined with a cleft sentence [the way … is …] here to focus on the differences in how people believe first and second languages are used.

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar/c1-grammar/advanced-passives-review

https://www.englishpodcastscollected.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/BBC-Ideas-Why-being-bilingual-is-good-for-your-brain.pdf

https://www.englishpodcastscollected.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/BBC-Ideas-Why-being-bilingual-is-good-for-your-brain.docx