Learning languages may keep brain young — Study

A large international study has suggested that speaking more than one language may slow brain ageing and reduce the risks associated with accelerated ageing.

The study, published in the journal Nature Ageing, found that the benefits increase with the number of languages a person speaks. According to the researchers, multilingual individuals are about half as likely to show signs of accelerated biological ageing compared with people who speak only one language.

Using a computational approach, the researchers examined the relationship between multilingualism and healthy ageing in 86,000 healthy participants aged 51 to 90 across 27 European countries.

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The study focused on the “biobehavioral age gap” — the difference between a person’s chronological age and their predicted biological age. The predicted age takes into account several physiological, lifestyle, and socioeconomic factors, including education level and cardiometabolic health. A large gap may indicate either accelerated or slower ageing.

The researchers found that people who speak only one language are twice as likely to experience accelerated ageing as multilingual individuals. They also observed that the protective effect becomes stronger among people who speak two or more additional languages.

The team suggested that this benefit may stem from the constant mental effort required to manage multiple languages.

The study’s co-author, Agustín Ibáñez, a neuroscientist at Adolfo Ibáñez University, said the research aimed to address a longstanding question in ageing studies: whether multilingualism can genuinely delay ageing.

“Speaking several languages continuously exercises multiple systems. It forces you to manage attention, inhibit interference, and switch between linguistic rules, all of which strengthen the networks that tend to weaken with age,” he said.

Ibáñez added that multilingualism may also offer emotional and social benefits by strengthening people’s social connections and sense of identity, which can positively influence health and well-being.

According to Susan Teubner-Rhodes, a cognitive psychologist at Auburn University, the findings should encourage more people to learn and actively use a second language.

The researchers hope their findings will encourage policymakers to promote language learning within educational systems.

Previous studies have suggested that speaking multiple languages can improve cognitive functions such as memory and attention, helping to support brain health in later life.

However, many earlier studies relied on small sample sizes and less reliable methods of measuring ageing, leading to findings that were often inconsistent and difficult to generalise.