Monolingual vs. Multilingual

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this project is to find out whether a person who speaks more than one language can learn another language more easily than someone who only speaks one language. Our hypothesis is that multi-linguals can learn new languages more easily than monolinguals because when people know two or more languages, their brain adapts to learning new languages more easily as they have had more exposure to languages and to different learning methods. Methods/Materials We tested subjects on written, audio and oral tests we wrote then collected the test data and averaged the scores. Multilingual test subjects and monolingual test subjects ranging from 11 to 14 years of age; written, audio, and oral test created by us on pictorial based languages and Latin based languages; computer for audio portion of the test and data entry and analysis. Results After averaging out all test scores, multi-linguals and monolinguals had the exact same score average in nearly every category. The average test scores were as follows: written portion of test- 11/15, audio portion of test- 13/15, oral portion of test- 12/15. The overall scores were not identical, however, they were extremely close. The monolinguals overall average score was 35/45 and the multi-linguals overall average score was 36/45. Conclusions/Discussion In conclusion, our hypothesis was incorrect. After averaging out all test scores in each category, we discovered that both our monolingual and multilingual test subjects had the exact same overall score average after being rounded to the nearest number in almost every category. The only exception to this were the overall scores, which were one point different after being rounded and were slightly more than three tenths points different. After conducting our tests, we have also come to the conclusion that even if a person is fluent in a second language, it does not affect the speed of their learning another language. Some people, both monolingual and multilingual, do learn new languages more quickly than others, however this appears to be due to their learning skills, study techniques, and overall language aptitude.

Competition history

• CSEF 2013 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0703

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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