[swellguy]

Dismissing an important skillset by pretending it could be magical is called clickbait. The advantage of knowing a second language is to be able to communicate and understand a new segment of humanity. This is like creating a paper: being able to pump gas into your car affords no general improvement in hair growth on your toes.

[rippercushions]

The paper is tapping on a long-standing debate about the effects of being bilingual. For a long time, it was thought that being bilingual was actively harmful, and indeed it's been shown in studies that babies with parents who speak different languages to them are slower to reach some linguistic milestones. Later research showed that this was just temporary, and not only was there no negative effect, but bilingual kids tended to do better on some tests of aptitude than monolinguals. And now this study is saying that no, maybe they're not better after all.

Wikipedia, as always, has more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_effects_of_bilingual...

[jletienne]

especially on a programming forum. Knowing Python, SQL, and R has been hugely beneficial. I can read Ruby scripts and colleagues can talk me through JS without me ever writing those.

Would be surprised if knowing multiple spoken language didn't help at all!