• Posted July 6, 2026

Learning Languages Could Net You A Younger Brain, Study Says

Is your teenager thinking about taking a Spanish or French class?

Tell them there’s a hidden benefit to picking up another language — their brain might age slower, a new study says.

People who speak additional languages have brains that appear six to 13 years younger than those who only speak a single language, researchers reported at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Forum on Sunday in Barcelona, Spain.

“In simple terms, people who spoke more languages tended to have brains that looked younger than expected for their chronological age,” researcher Lucia Amoruso said in a news release. She’s deputy scientific director at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language in San Sebastián, Spain.

For the study, researchers used brain scans performed on 728 people to create a “brain aging clock.” The clock estimates the age of a person’s brain based on the level of connectivity between different parts of the brain.

The team then used the clock to gauge the brain age of another group of 144 people, some of whom spoke as many as four different languages.

Results showed that the more languages people spoke, the younger their brains appeared.

Two languages were associated with brains six years younger, three languages with brains seven years younger, and four languages with brains 13 years younger compared to those who had only learned a single language, researchers found.

Learning an extra language at a younger age seemed to slow brain aging, researchers found. Adults also benefitted from becoming highly fluent in another language.

“The effect was not only related to the number of languages spoken,” Amoruso said. “Higher language proficiency and earlier acquisition of a second language were also associated with more delayed brain aging.

“This suggests that multilingual experience matters as a gradient: it is not simply about being bilingual or not, but about the depth and duration of language experience,” Amoruso said.

Researchers next plan to look at whether language skills might matter when it comes to brain conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

Christina Dalla, a professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, reviewed the findings. 

She said many factors can influence brain health and mental abilities as people age.

“For example, we know that not smoking, eating well, social and artistic engagement, as well as being active, can help. How we use our brains throughout life can also have an impact, especially if we engage in effortful learning that activates our brain,” Dalla said in a news release.

“This study suggests that learning a second, third or fourth language could help our brains to stay younger for longer, and the earlier we start, the better,” she continued. “There are many good reasons for learning another language at any age — social, cultural and for the health of your brain — so we should support language learning at school and throughout life, even if it’s hard.”

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

Harvard Medical School has tips for keeping your brain young.

SOURCE: Federation of European Neuroscience Societies, news release, July 5, 2026