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Comment by tomerico | Hacker News Reader

The fact that it seems intuitive increases the risk that the study is wrong

Well, the article points out that the common sense until the 1960s was that bilingualism was worse. We also used to think neurogenesis/neuroplasticity didn't exist in adulthood.

I think it would be major news wrt our modern understanding of the brain if it turned out that we indeed should learn fewer things rather than more things to keep our brains functioning optimally. That sounds like 1950s superstition all over again, like running out of neurons.

As someone who grew up in a bilingual environment, it seems intuitive to me that I'm worse for it (in terms of my social dealings and my problem-solving skills).

I think if I had linguistic skills tested, I would probably be rated above-average for both English and my maternal tongue, but somehow to me it just doesn't feel that way... and I find this profoundly annoying, I feel home nowhere.

Under-reporting of one’s ability is often related to having a _higher_ ability though. perhaps a heightened perception of your linguistic shortcomings is an unfortunate by-product of that superior ability

I don’t know what I believe is true - I’m just saying it’s possible the study could be true AND it also be the case that many multilinguals feel the opposite

> Under-reporting of one’s ability is often related to having a _higher_ ability though. perhaps a heightened perception of your linguistic shortcomings is an unfortunate by-product of that superior ability

I don't think this is true. Unless you've misreading the Dunning Krueger paper.

It is a corollary essentially of running it the opposite direction on the axis, Imposter Syndrome.

It seems consistent with "every answer coming with two more questions" a "tree-like" question structure as knowing more means knowing more about the unknowns.

So someone less familiar would think "Carpentry? Illiterate innumerate peasants could do it, more strength than skill." Meanwhile even a master carpenter of bespoke homes would know that they are inferior to a jouneyman cooper who worked before metallic barrel rings because they didn't have call for making joins that round and tight, that they hardly even worked with steam bending, and that they use automated tools that millenia ago would have been done by say hand and feel and calculations rather than using a micrometer.

I'm not bilingual, so this is an outsider looking in, but piggybacking off the sibling comment I wonder if you feel you're worse at language because you'll often have thoughts during a conversation that your brain can express easily in one language but not the one currently being spoken? So you often feel like you're having trouble expressing yourself in any given language?

One could argue that such events occur for everyone, but for a monolingual it would speak to the failings of the one language they speak, not of their inability to express thoughts. Or maybe such events occur more often for those who are bilingual because the brain can come up with a greater diversity of thoughts, owing to its mastery of two "modes" of thought.

As a bilingual (and a writer/storyteller by trade), I've always seen the second language as opening my brain to other phrases and analogies that don't exist in the other language. Some people aren't able to parse the extra options, but many are.

It is a known thing that Bilinguals usually have a smaller vocabulary by grade level in both languages on average compared to most peera but well within proficiency windows. Social issues are likely way more "awkwardness" of being a minority among a minority than shared identity than deficiency related.

Looking at the numbers effectively it seems that monolinguals have diminished returns - and I can see that just because a lot of problem spaces are like that.

Granted "vocabulary size" isn't quite apples to apples given how languages and syntaxes differ.

There is actually a pretty good study that shows that people are able to guess which studies will replicate and which will not:

https://80000hours.org/psychology-replication-quiz/

Well, most common sense things are indeed right, so...

Occam's razor is just another brand of shaving razors.

Well, Occam's Razor is just common sense based itself.

It's not an absolute rule, and not something that has been (or can be) proven.

That's what GP is referring to. Because people don't expect common sense to be overturned, bad science that supports it tends to survive and reach wider audiences.

So if you're ready about a study that supports common sense, it had unfair advantages to reach you and is less likely to have underlying merit.

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