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Asked by anon-217175 to Savannah, Philippe, Lucy, Joanna, Harrison, Edoardo on 12 Jun 2019.
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Savannah Clawson answered on 12 Jun 2019:
I am not bilingual (I wish I was!) and I do not have any problems with what I do. However, this is because my first language is English. Science is mainly taught in English worldwide so scientists from other countries are usually expected to be able to speak English well. This is especially true for scientists that work in big collaborations like the experiments at CERN (where I work). CERN has two official languages: English and French. I speak a little bit of French so try my best to practise it whenever I get the chance!
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Joanna Huang answered on 12 Jun 2019:
I think so, it comes in handy when I meet people from different backgrounds and if there is another language they prefer other than English. I learnt French in Canada, and speak Mandarin with my family at home 🙂 I also find it quite a challenge to describe my work in other languages – so it’s good practice for me too!
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Harrison Prosper answered on 12 Jun 2019:
Frankly, I wish I were multilingual! Today, I have colleagues from forty different countries who are all forced to speak and write in English. I wish I could chat with some of them in their mother tongue.
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Edoardo Vescovi answered on 12 Jun 2019: last edited 13 Jun 2019 8:04 am
It does at the top level. As you’re still at school, I want to sound terribly boring to encourage to learn other languages.
1) A language comes with rules: in sentences (“I” + “eat” + “an apple”), in single words (often add “ed” for simple past) and in fancy expressions (“raining cats and dogs”). This is true in English only and has some effect in shaping the way you think and remember. Another language makes you flexible, tell apart real meaning and words, and express thoughts in a way that you wouldn’t usually do.
2) It stimulates a sort of scientific thinking. Latin is the top example. Reading is a jigsaw puzzle because words can be scattered everywhere in the sentence. Plus, as many English words come from there and Greek, you can split them into smaller pieces and guess the meaning.
3) Pure pleasure of reading and learning a new story. Going back, Latin words may be blunt for our peaceful attitude (Romans were basically warmongers) as well as express shades of love (some laid back) that were lost in English.
4) You construct the full sentence before speaking, slow thoughts down and don’t mumble many words in place of the right one.
5) It allows direct communication, makes new friends and reduces deception or misunderstanding. This goes from reading a street sign and have a casual chat to the notorious example of “mokusatsu”. That was said by the Japanese in reply to the last offer of surrender in World War 2. Sadly, it was translated as “ignore” and the atomic bomb was dropped also because of that.
6) A language comes with culture and history and makes you belong to another community. Think of the English words that sound French/German and when/why borrowed. After an invasion, like the Norman conquest of England? Or an invention? Scientific names often come from French/German as these countries were leading science in the last century. Think of the words that some languages don’t have instead. I kind of remember that some islanders in the Pacific ocean have no verb for “to steal” as everything is shared. -
Philippe Gambron answered on 14 Jun 2019:
I speak 4 languages but it’s not very useful because everyone speaks to me in English anyway. I remember meeting, when I was in Belgium, where we spoke a terrible mixture of French , Dutch and German. We were doing so because we wanted to be nice and speak in the other people’s native language. Unfortunately, non of us spoke all those languages, only 2 of them, and it was a huge mess. In the end, we had to summarise everything in English.
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