Bilingualism

I just read this fascinating article about bilingualism. It’s good to know that I have at least done one good thing in my life. Also, it made me think of my aunt (my father’s older sister), who was born so early in the 20th century her first foreign language was German, not English. She also learned English and I assume she became quite fluent in that since she went to the US to visit her ‘boy cousins’ and ended up staying for a couple of years, living and working in New York.

Much later in life, she decided to study Italian and ended up learning it so well she could get by in Italy on vacations, ordering food in restaurants, reading newspapers etc. She was in her mid sixties at the time.

All this could very well have helped her in her old age. She lived to be almost 97, fought off pneumonia only a few years earlier and never went senile.

I have been hoping to learn one or two more languages fluently, but I’ve had trouble choosing which one and also motivating myself. Perhaps I’ll settle for just knowing the others well enough to read and understand.