A bit wired question, but i would like to know if also other people feel like that.
I’m now 27 years old, five years ago the only language that i knew was Hebrew. than cause of my job I had to work around the world in different countries, so i had to learn more languages. First Iv’e focused on learning English,it took me almost two years to get to fluently while speaking, after that Iv’e started to study Italian for another two years, my Italian is not good as my English when i speak, but i can understand almost everything when i listen. in the last year iv’e started to study also french which i still have a lot to improve.
In the last five years i invest at least one hour every day to study languages, I’m not sure if that’s the reason but i feel like my mind now is more sharper, I’ve recently started to interesting in physics and I can feel that it’s easier for me to solve a complicated problem that it used to be when i was younger.
I remember that at age 21 i took couple of IQ test to prepare to the acceptance tests of my work, the results of all of them were around 120-125. now i did again some iq tests and the results were around 135-140, It’s quite of improvement… I’m wonder if the reason of the improvement is cause of the focus in language learning, it’s hard for me to think about another reasons.
What do you think? you also feel a similar affect? or could it be something else…
Probably not. IQ seems to be pretty stable from the end of puberty onwards, upward jumps of around a standard deviation over a few years would be really unusual.
Were they proper administered IQ tests (by a psychologist) or just tests that you did over the internet? if they are internet based tests, then you can disregard the results- they are mostly unreliable.
Language learning probably does have advantages- it may boost your long term memory in some way or help in staving off age related cognitive decline. I just doubt that it would significantly boost IQ, especially in adulthood.
I think the reason why you feel like you have become more intelligent over the past few years is due to the new way of learning that you have taken on. As you are learning the language at least one hour a day, you built up your competence to become more consistent in your learning patterns. I have recently started to learn Spanish consistently and already notice a difference in my learning pattern for other subjects as well, they have become more consistent which makes me remember it better. Keep it up!
Ooh that is really interesting, I actually wanted to start with telenovelas somewhere soon as i feel that i more or less start to keep up with regular conversations. In what sense do you feel your IQ has been decreasing?
Some are cool, but I’m referring to the “traditional” ones that are cheesy love stories like American Soap Operas. very vapid. They are good for learning I think because they are fairly low key, not too complicated, and have plenty of senoritas lindas.
I ended up getting really into Teresa and Rubi. If these were in English, I would feel my IQ dropping and brain losing mass. However, the vocab was fairly straight forward.
Reina del Sur was decent and had the biggest budget ever. El Hotel de Los Secretos was a pretty decent as a mystery set in 1908. I would recommend these over the the ones above in that I would actually admit to watching them.
Cable Girls/Chicas del Cable and Ingobernable were shorter runs which I liked a lot.
Velvet is much talked about and seems to be the highest regarded of the Spanish people I talk to, but I have yet to watch it myself. It’s on the to-do list.
