Post written by François Grosjean. The influence of a first language on a second language in the form of interferences (transfers) is well accepted and well documented (see here). But until fairly ...

There are more than 560 languages spoken in Latin America. Most are dying native Indigenous languages, including Quechua, Guarani, and Aymara. There's Haitian Creole, Portuguese, and, of course, the ...

Post written by François Grosjean. In an earlier post on language forgetting, I mentioned a little American boy, Stephen, who had acquired Garo in India during his first years of life but who had ...

You may believe that you have forgotten the Chinese you spoke as a child, but your brain hasn't. Moreover, that "forgotten" first language may well influence what goes on in your brain when you speak ...

Leaving Saint Petersburg for Moscow recently, I needed to determine whether our train tickets were for an assigned seat in a specific car, or if it was open seating. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the ...

This International Mother Language Day (Feb. 21), Canadians celebrated their multilingual heritage by recognizing flexible uses of languages. According to UNESCO, “Mother tongue or mother language ...

This article is now available above as a Brainstorm podcast. You can subscribe to the Brainstorm podcast through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You have probably ...