On being multilingual does it help out thinking abilities or

[kowalskil]

A question about being multi-lingual. Does this help or does it hinder intellectual development? I met many people who believe that learning foreign languages helped them. But that has not been my experience.

My first language was Polish--my father and mother spoke Polish at home. That was in Moscow, before my father was arrested in 1938, when I was 7 years old. After that it became Russian, even with my mother. In 1944 it became Polish again-- in a Polish orphanage near Moscow, and in Warsaw, where I lived between 1946 and 1957. Then it became French, for seven years. And it has been English, since 1964.

Language and thinking are interconnected; they are probably part of the same thing. I rarely have a chance to speak other languages I know; my wife and daughter are American born. But several days ago I started reading something in Polish, for about two hours. After that I started making spelling mistakes, such as "jes" instead of "yes," "Moskow" instead of "Moscow," and "Wladimir" instead of "Vladimir."

I am fluent in French and English but my vocabulary, in each of these languages, is limited. What I know was 100% sufficient in my professional work (to teach and to conduct research in physics). But it is not sufficient to appreciate poetry, or to read some books. Limited vocabulary means limited thinking ability. That is what I think, on the basis of my experience.