The Hummingbeez

Apart. In Dutch, apart can mean separate, distinct, unusual or slightly odd.

In English, apart suggests distance or division.

In French, à part means aside or separate.

The words overlap, yet they do not carry exactly the same social texture. These are the small moments when languages become fascinating: familiar sounds can hold different meanings, while apparently unrelated words can describe a surprisingly similar feeling.

A small word can have several national identities and arrive with entirely different cultural associations. That is one of the quiet pleasures of moving between Spanish, French, Dutch and English, and discovering how each adds a different emotional colour. Sometimes English acts as a bridge; sometimes it neutralises the feeling, making an expression easier to understand but less emotionally precise.

This is one of the essential challenges and opportunities of our deeply connected world: comprehension requires more than vocabulary. It requires context, cultural awareness and an ear for what people mean beneath the words they choose.

Gezelligheid, hygge and fika can be translated, technically. Yet no translation quite delivers the feeling of shared warmth, an unhurried coffee, the right people and nowhere urgent to be.

The world is vast; language is our brave but imperfect attempt to describe it. A multilingual mind gets to see the gaps in that attempt more often—not as a problem, but as an invitation to look again.

More Than a Vocabulary Upgrade

It is tempting to say bilingual people simply have “two brains.” Sadly, no extra storage space appears in the skull.

What we do have is repeated practice in selecting a language, reading a situation and adjusting to the person in front of us. This can foster metalinguistic awareness: the understanding that a word is not the thing itself, but one possible way of representing it (Bialystok, 2017).

Is this phrase direct, or polite enough? Is silence agreement, reflection or polite resistance? Does “urgent” mean today, this week or preferably before someone sends a third follow-up email? – Reminds me of “soon” intepreted in multiple way or culturally 😉

It is not only about grammar. It is about learning that the same reality can be framed differently to understand one another.

Crucially, bilingualism is an experience, not a badge. Its effects depend on age of learning, proficiency, daily use, switching patterns, education and social environment (Bialystok, 2017; Kremin & Byers-Heinlein, 2021).

The Neuroscience, Without the Glossy Slogan

The popular claim that bilingualism automatically makes us smarter is too neat. Lehtonen et al.’s (2018) meta-analysis found no reliable, across-the-board bilingual advantage in adult executive functioning once publication bias and differences between studies were considered.

So, no, learning French will not instantly turn anyone into Sherlock Holmes with a better understanding of croissants and pain au chocolat.

Still, “not a universal advantage” is not the same as “no value.” Acar et al.’s (2024) meta-analysis of 39 studies found a modest positive association between bilingualism and creativity. Promising, yes; proof of a superpower, no.

Creative thinking has many parents: curiosity, psychological safety, expertise, time, culture, personality and a willingness to stay with uncertainty long enough for a new idea to emerge. Perhaps languages help because they rehearse one useful question: could this be said, seen or solved another way?

There is also a health finding that deserves careful phrasing. Brini et al. (2020) found that bilingualism was associated with a later reported onset of dementia symptoms in clinical studies, but not with a lower risk of developing dementia. A second language is not neurological insurance; it is one meaningful part of a much wider life.

Multidimensional Perspective Is a Professional Skill

Children growing up with two languages encounter a practical truth early: different people may know different words for the same thing. Schroeder’s (2018) meta-analysis found a small bilingual advantage in children’s theory of mind – the ability to reason about another person’s beliefs and perspective.

That does not mean multilingualism automatically grants emotional intelligence, sainthood or the ability to survive every difficult group chat. Empathy remains a practice.

The evidence on emotional intelligence is especially nuanced. Ward and Ragosko (2026) found that bilingualism and broader language experience did not directly predict empathy or emotional intelligence; however, the language in which people processed emotional information did matter. In other words, language can shape the emotional distance or closeness of a moment, without automatically making anyone more empathic.

Reading fiction can offer another practice ground. Wimmer et al.’s (2024) preregistered meta-analyses found small cognitive benefits associated with fiction reading, with positive experimental effects emerging for empathy and mentalising. Reading fiction in another language may make that encounter slower and more attentive: you do not simply follow a plot, but enter its humour, manners and moral atmosphere.

Dr Hannah Critchlow’s (2022) idea of joined-up thinking offers a lovely companion to this: understanding is not merely receiving information; it is making connections across it.

In a digital era that can compress everything into instant opinions, that pause matters. Human connection is not a formatting issue.

Globalisation Needs Cultural Translation, Not Flattened Heritage

The professional case is equally compelling, although less glamorous than a LinkedIn post about “global mindsets.” Multinational teams do not become innovative simply because several flags appear in the team photo.

Language diversity can create status gaps, quieter contributors and small in-groups hidden inside a supposedly international meeting. Research on multinational project teams shows that language differences affect relationships and knowledge processing, including the shared meaning teams need to work well together (Kalra & Szymanski, 2023; Tenzer et al., 2021).

Yet this is precisely where multilingual professionals can become valuable boundary-spanners. The person who can translate a customer’s hesitation into a product brief, a technical constraint into a commercial decision, or a culturally different communication style into trust is not merely “good with languages.” They are helping the organisation think.

In complex work, the most resourceful person is often not the loudest native speaker. It is the person who can cut through noise, identify what matters and make the idea land.

One Common Language, Many Necessary Voices

History also needs a gentle correction. Christopher Columbus did not sail for Elizabeth I; his 1492 voyage was sponsored by the Spanish Crown. Elizabeth I later authorised Sir Walter Raleigh’s colonial ventures, while Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in North America in 1607 (Library of Congress, n.d.; National Archives, n.d.; National Park Service, n.d.).

English did not become a global commercial language because it was inherently clearer, and French did not become diplomatic because it was more romantic. Languages travel with power: empire, trade, institutions, migration, education, media and, later, American economic and cultural influence.

Tim Marshall’s (2015) comparison between the United States and Europe is thought-provoking here. A common language can reduce coordination costs, but it does not explain innovation on its own. Political union, geography, institutions, research investment, migration and market integration matter too. It would be an overreach to claim that one shared language manufactures creativity.

Language is infrastructure, not destiny.

The better ambition is not a world in which everyone sounds the same. It is a world in which we can understand one another without asking anyone to disappear.

A Life With More Than One Word for Home

Perhaps this is the deepest personal benefit of multilingualism: life becomes more textured.

You may have one language for family, another for ambition, another for friendship and another for the version of yourself who became brave enough to move abroad. Some emotions arrive in the language where you first felt them. Others only make sense in the language where you learned to name them.

Nothing digital can fully replace that lived experience perhaps a very millennial thought. Translation software can give us the words; it cannot always give us the memory, the social music or the exact warmth behind them.

Professor Morten Kringelbach’s (2021) Oxford podcast, The Neuroscience of a Life Well-Lived, explores how neuroscience may help us think about pleasure and eudaimonia. It is a useful reminder that a good life is not simply an efficient one.

A well-lived life may not be one in which we find the perfect word for everything. It may be one in which we remain curious enough to keep searching, humble enough to ask what someone really means and open enough to discover that another language has already been carrying the feeling we could not quite explain.

After all, as John Donne (1624/2007) wrote, “no man is an island.” Sometimes, we are simply a bridge still learning its own languages.

References

Acar, S., Balayar, B., Özçelik, H. N., & Kharkhurin, A. V. (2024). Are bilinguals more creative than monolinguals? A meta-analysis. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 58(4), 755–776.

Bialystok, E. (2017). The bilingual adaptation: How minds accommodate experience. Psychological Bulletin, 143(3), 233–262.

Brini, S., Sohrabi, H. R., Hebert, J. J., Forrest, M. R. L., Laine, M., Hämäläinen, H., Karrasch, M., Peiffer, J. J., Martins, R. N., & Fairchild, T. J. (2020). Bilingualism is associated with a delayed onset of dementia but not with a lower risk of developing it: A systematic review with meta-analyses. Neuropsychology Review, 30(1), 1–24.

Critchlow, H. (2022). Joined-up thinking: The science of collective intelligence and its power to change our lives. Hodder & Stoughton.

Donne, J. (2007). Devotions upon emergent occasions; Together with death’s duel (Original work published 1624). Project Gutenberg.

Kalra, K., & Szymanski, M. (2023). Alike yet distinct: The effect of language diversity on interpersonal relationships within national and multinational project teams. Management and Organization Review, 19(4), 627–654.

Kremin, L. V., & Byers-Heinlein, K. (2021). Why not both? Rethinking categorical and continuous approaches to bilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(6), 1560–1575.

Kringelbach, M. L. (2021, January 21). The neuroscience of a life well-lived [Audio podcast episode]. University of Oxford Podcasts.

Lehtonen, M., Soveri, A., Laine, A., Järvenpää, J., de Bruin, A., & Antfolk, J. (2018). Is bilingualism associated with enhanced executive functioning in adults? A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 144(4), 394–425.

Library of Congress. (n.d.). Columbus and the Taíno. Exploring the early Americas.

Marshall, T. (2015). Prisoners of geography: Ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics. Elliott & Thompson.

National Archives. (n.d.). Native North Americans.

National Park Service. (n.d.). Sir Walter Raleigh.

Schroeder, S. R. (2018). Do bilinguals have an advantage in theory of mind? A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Communication, 3, Article 36.

Tenzer, H., Pudelko, M., & Zellmer-Bruhn, M. (2021). The impact of language barriers on knowledge processing in multinational teams. Journal of World Business, 56(2), Article 101184.

Ward, R., & Ragosko, M. (2026). Does language experience and bilingualism shape empathy and emotional intelligence?. International Journal of Bilingualism, 30(1), 153–168.

Wimmer, L., Currie, G., Friend, S., Wittwer, J., & Ferguson, H. J. (2024). Cognitive effects and correlates of reading fiction: Two pre-registered multi-level meta-analyses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(6), 1464–1488.