> that being bilingual gave you significant cognitive advantage?
Probably not in the "intelligence tests" kind of way, but, then again, as time passes I've tended to view those more and more as charlatanism.
> Or could you be quite intelligent with above average memory
I certainly used to have a much better memory when I was a kid (I'm now in my early 40s), that's when I basically put the basis for learning all the foreign languages that I now know: English (via the public education system here), French (via my dad and via school), Italian (by watching TV and because Italian is very close to Romanian), partially also Spanish by watching football matches commented in Spanish on TV.
Come to think of it, a study trying to explain how come kids and teenagers are much better at learning foreign languages compared to adults would be more interesting.
Probably not in the "intelligence tests" kind of way, but, then again, as time passes I've tended to view those more and more as charlatanism.
> Or could you be quite intelligent with above average memory
I certainly used to have a much better memory when I was a kid (I'm now in my early 40s), that's when I basically put the basis for learning all the foreign languages that I now know: English (via the public education system here), French (via my dad and via school), Italian (by watching TV and because Italian is very close to Romanian), partially also Spanish by watching football matches commented in Spanish on TV.
Come to think of it, a study trying to explain how come kids and teenagers are much better at learning foreign languages compared to adults would be more interesting.