How the brain of a bilingual person or interpreter works!

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]We can put you under a an MRI. I can put a smell under your nose and ask you, "Hey Chris, what's that smell?"

[00:00:07]And before you come up with the smell, I can see that you know the answer. Wow.

[00:00:13]>> say, "Oh, right. There's that part that's lighting up." And I say, "Wait, wait, wait. Don't tell me."

[00:00:16]>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:00:17]>> And then I'll say, "Can you speak a second language?"

[00:00:20]And the answer would be yes. I say, "Okay, Chris, think about that smell in your other language." And you can watch a different area of their brain >> That's just crazy.

[00:00:31]>> And by the amount of area it takes for you to think in the second language, we know what age you were when you learned the second language.

[00:00:39]>> dude.

[00:00:40]That is cool.

[00:00:41]>> and as you watch them then say, "Okay, as soon as the smell is being curious, it's in one area of the brain. But as soon as they find the vocab, the word that belongs to that in the correct language, you can see a different area light up." Like, "Oh, I know he knows the answer now."