This was the headline on an article by Kaya Burgess, a Science correspondent in today’s Times (of London, 11 November 2025) which commented on a study of 86,149 people aged between 51 and 90 in 27 European countries. The conclusion of the study from the Basque Centre on Cognition, Brain and Language is that the more languages you speak, the less likely you are to experience “accelerated ageing”. Being bilingual was linked with “modest” advantage, but “the benefits really kick in when you know three or more” as this was “associated with a consistently protective effect that became more pronounced with increasing age”.
This is indeed good news I’ve had several events when I was reading something and while absorbing the info, didn’t immediately realize it was in Spanish (I read it, and scrolled on only to realize that wasn’t English. Scrolling back, and sure enough it was Spanish). Now I just have to get my French up to speed and choose a 4th language. Greek and Mandarin aren’t even on that short list – Greek still looks like Alien hieroglyphs (Duolingo score 12) and My Mandarin Duolingo score is * drum roll 7. ‘nuf said. LOL
A limitation of the study is that, because it examined such large numbers of people across a continent, it did not look at the level of fluency in the languages spoken, so could not differentiate between “a person who once studied another language in school and someone who uses multiple languages daily”, Rothman and Gallo wrote.
In general I’ve read that regular, challenging cognitive activity — chess, reading, writing, playing music, learning — correlates with reduced cognitive decline.
The particular advantage of language learning over say, chess, I would imagine, is that it works more of the whole brain — comprehension, listening, reading, writing, memory, pronunciation, socializing.
I’ve had several events when I was reading something and while absorbing the info, didn’t immediately realize it was in Spanish (I read it, and scrolled on only to realize that wasn’t English. Scrolling back, and sure enough it was Spanish). Now I just have to get my French up to speed and choose a 4th language. Greek and Mandarin aren’t even on that short list – Greek still looks like Alien hieroglyphs (Duolingo score 12) and My Mandarin Duolingo score is * drum roll 7. ‘nuf said. LOL