Six people, all talking.
They interrupt, they laugh, they change the subject. By the time the translation arrives, the joke has moved on without you.
Why learn a language
Your phone can translate now. So why learn?
It’s a fair question. Here is our answer, and what the research says, with every study named and linked.
I · The gap
Translation gets you through. It doesn’t get you in.
Earbuds can now translate a conversation as it happens. You can cross a city, order dinner and check in without a word of the language. For getting through, that’s enough. For the moments that matter, it isn’t.
Your partner’s mother.
She is telling the story of the wedding. You want to laugh at the right line, not three seconds after it.
A dead battery.
Late at night, a neighborhood you don’t know, and nothing left to hold up. Now it’s just you and what you can say.
Every morning, the same hello.
A translated hello is still a stranger’s hello. The day you say it yourself, something changes.
That’s the gap. Not accuracy. Life, at the speed people live it.
II · The research
What the studies say. And what they don’t.
Language learning attracts big claims. Here are the findings we trust, who found them, and where the evidence is still argued over.
Work
Nine in ten US employers rely on staff who speak a language other than English. One in four say they’ve lost business for lack of one.
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2019 · the report
Pay
The pay difference is real, and modest: about 2 to 3% for US college graduates who speak a second language. Nobody should learn for the raise alone.
Saiz & Zoido, Review of Economics and Statistics, 2005 · the paper
The brain
After three months of intensive study, interpreter trainees in Sweden showed growth in language-related areas of the brain. Students in a comparison group didn’t. A small study, and a striking one.
Mårtensson et al., NeuroImage, 2012 · the paper
Later life
Researchers in Scotland tested the same people at 11 and again in their seventies. Those who had learned a second language did better than their childhood scores predicted, even if they learned it as adults.
Bak, Nissan, Allerhand & Deary, Annals of Neurology, 2014 · the paper
Decisions
Offered the same choice in a second language, people were less swayed by the way it was put to them. The extra distance seems to make people think it through.
Keysar, Hayakawa & An, Psychological Science, 2012 · the paper
Still argued
In clinic records from India, bilingual patients showed signs of dementia about four and a half years later. Studies that follow people forward in time haven’t found the same difference. Promising, not settled.
Not shown
Researchers still argue over whether two languages sharpen everyday attention and self-control. A major review found no consistent evidence. We’d rather tell you that than sell you a sharper brain.
Paap & Greenberg, Cognitive Psychology, 2013 · the paper
III · The choice
Nobody has to. That’s the point.
CookingorDelivery
GuitarorA playlist
SpeakingorTranslating
Nobody cooks because it’s faster than delivery. People do it because doing it changes them, and because the people at the table can taste the difference. A language works the same way.
Speaking someone’s language, imperfectly and on purpose, says one thing a screen can’t: I’m not just passing through.
IV · Pick one
Five languages. Each one a town.
SpanishMexico City
sobremesaThe long talk at the table after the meal is overSpanish FrenchParis
flânerTo wander a city with nowhere to beFrench ItalianRome
bohWho knows, said with a shrugItalian PortugueseRio de Janeiro
cafunéRunning your fingers gently through someone’s hairPortuguese EnglishChicago
hang outTo spend time together with no plan at allEnglish Every language is in every plan.
Where we come in
You learn to talk by talking.
We built Project Fluency for the moments translation can’t reach. You call people who live in each town, from your first day, at your level. When the real moment comes, you won’t reach for your phone.
Sources
- Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers. American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2019. actfl.org
- Saiz, A. & Zoido, E. Listening to What the World Says: Bilingualism and Earnings in the United States. Review of Economics and Statistics 87(3), 2005. doi.org/10.1162/0034653054638256
- Mårtensson, J. et al. Growth of language-related brain areas after foreign language learning. NeuroImage 63(1), 2012. doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.06.043
- Bak, T. H., Nissan, J. J., Allerhand, M. M. & Deary, I. J. Does bilingualism influence cognitive aging? Annals of Neurology 75(6), 2014. doi.org/10.1002/ana.24158
- Keysar, B., Hayakawa, S. L. & An, S. G. The Foreign-Language Effect: Thinking in a Foreign Tongue Reduces Decision Biases. Psychological Science 23(6), 2012. doi.org/10.1177/0956797611432178
- Alladi, S. et al. Bilingualism delays age at onset of dementia, independent of education and immigration status. Neurology 81(22), 2013. doi.org/10.1212/01.wnl.0000436620.33155.a4
- Mukadam, N., Sommerlad, A. & Livingston, G. The Relationship of Bilingualism Compared to Monolingualism to the Risk of Cognitive Decline or Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 58(1), 2017. doi.org/10.3233/JAD-170131
- Paap, K. R. & Greenberg, Z. I. There is no coherent evidence for a bilingual advantage in executive processing. Cognitive Psychology 66(2), 2013. doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2012.12.002