Learning another language may be one of the best ways to keep your brain healthy

Before Covid I got my German B1 certificate. I was diligently going to German-speaking meetup twice a week.

One of the meetups had a bunch of googlers in it regularly. One of them was a loud gregarious Italian from the north. He was telling me a story about cleaning fish and chopping their heads off with a machete and how he cut the end of his finger off and had it reattached. He seemed nice but a little inept and lacking caution.

Covid was starting. In the newspapers it was reported that Zurich had its first case of Covid. They were cautious to not say who it was - no clues at all in the paper. But a friend at Google forwarded me an internal email that said no one at Google had it yet other than someone in the Zurich office who had just been in northern Italy.

I stopped going to the meetups. I really should start again but not sure what's going to happen next.

Anyone have experience learning a new language in their 30s? I've tried and failed a few times. I can't tell if the time constraints (family, work, life) or mental constraints are the bigger problem.

I am trilingual. All of my languages belong to different language groups; I regularly read and write in both directions. I use all of the three languages every day. I can also bulldoze my way through a text in a fourth language given a dictionary and a reference for its grammar. I can read the alphabet of a fifth language (mostly w/o understanding the sounds that I make, but I am told that I get it right).

I got there 15 years ago. I seem to be unable to learn anything new since.

All of the the research I have seen on this topic have been observational retrospective studies, which are worthless and should be ignored. The confounders on the group of people who are able to learn a second language (let alone a third or more) are so large that they cannot be overcome without a randomized control. This stuff is churnalism, right up there with "does coffee make you live longer?" [1].

But, as someone who has now devoted a large portion of my life to becoming proficient at a second language, I do think there are benefits, even if they've never been proven. The most important of these, in my opinion, is just the social aspects of learning another language. You have to get out there and talk to people, and that's inherently healthy.

I do want to say that you hear loads of pessimism about whether or not it's possible a language after childhood, etc., but I'm here to tell you that not only is it possible, it's possible to do even if you suck at languages (as I do). The primary factor is motivation, and the second biggest factor is time. Find a language that you like, because you like the culture you'll be interacting with when you speak it. If you don't, you'll never find the impetus to keep going when it gets hard and boring.

[1] protip: drink coffee if you like it, and don't worry about it. Likewise, learn a language if you like it, not because some dumb article said it would make your neurons fluffier.

I thought it is about programming languages

The biggest obstacle to learning a foreign language is that it's so much slower and more frustrating than using your native language, right? Compared to your native-language typing speed, even English typing speed is only half...

So it's really frustrating. how do you all relieve that frustration?

I had a massive stroke. I should be in a wheelchair. I'm mostly fine now.

It's postulated that my multilingual abilities helped, among other things.

The only solid thing I’ve seen for brain health is maintaining physical health

A second language, almost from the start, will also open up a whole second world for you.

When I go to somewhere that speaks Spanish the whole place “jumps into 3D” for me. I can understand what people at the table next to me are complaining or laughing about, I can make small talk with people, I don’t have to follow the “avocado toast” trail that the non-native speakers sort of get jammed into because they struggle off of it. It is a much more human experience when you understand the language.

At home, I can watch Spanish movies as well, and listen to music artists I probably might never have heard about like C. Tangana and Rosalia otherwise. It has doubled my cultural landscape for me.

After reading the article, I wonder if this isn’t a key secondary benefit to learning the language itself. It gives you a larger variety of things to enjoy in your life.

Note that languages can alternatively also be conlangs (constructed languages). They are in fact a lot more interesting and systematic than traditional human languages. Granted, you'll find no real-life people who verbally speak the conlang outside of arranged group calls within online communities.

Learning Lean 4 and trying to prove something using it is extremely mentally stimulating.

You also get to learn another culture which to some extent prevents you from becoming an a.hole. Lack of foreign language instruction in k-12 education in the USA might be a little correlated with this...

does this include programming languages which after all are a system of meaning?

Do programming languages count?

I don't think it's really possible to learn a new language unless you have to. Sure, you can learn some words and grammar from books and games like Duolingo, but you'll never really learn the language if you don't use it, and you'll only use it if you have to. This is why it's hard for English natives to learn another language: too many people speak our language already. And now people won't be learning computer languages any more either.