Can learning a second language actually make us smarter?

Scientific litsketch on boosting motivation

There has been an ongoing debate about whether learning a second language can increase our mental abilities such as the ability to remember, learn, or think flexibly with greater self control. However, research shows that there isn’t enough evidence that learning a second language improves our cognitive abilities (Lowe et al., 2021).

The researchers collected 136 peer-reviewed journal articles, 11 doctoral theses, and 2 unpublished datasets which collectively examined 23,414 children (10,937 bilinguals and 12,477 monolinguals).

The analyses found that learning a second language does not increase cognitive abilities when taking into account the children’s socioeconomic factors such as their parents’ income and education. Also, published articles have a greater bias in their results as many studies that report a strong positive effect of learning a second language on cognitive abilities were found to have more imprecise results. After adjusting for this publication bias, learning a second language did not increase cognitive abilities.

Learning a new language certainly has its benefits but evidence suggests that we cannot conclude that learning a new language improves our cognitive abilities.

Lowe, Cassandra J., Isu Cho, Samantha F. Goldsmith, and J. Bruce Morton. "The Bilingual Advantage in Children’s Executive Functioning Is Not Related to Language Status: A Meta-Analytic Review." Psychological Science 32, no. 7 (2021): 1115-1146.