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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1535 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 11, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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I'm not sure how true (being better at learning foreign languages) is, and how much of it is a reflection of interest rather than aptitude.

Interest is a prerequisite to being good at something, at least if that something requires you to put in the hours, as is the case for language learning. But it actually does look like there are differences in how men and women's brains process language, not just a difference in interest.

multi-tasking/task-switching

See my other comment. This has been shown empirically.

Are women faster typists? I think I type faster than every single woman I know.

You may well be. It wouldn't shock me if typing speed was affected by greater male variance. But nonetheless, 82.5% of court stenographers are women. When typist was a job, it was a woman's job. Secretaries (who do/did lots of typing) are almost all women. I don't think these are coincidences.

Interest is a prerequisite to being good at something, at least if that something requires you to put in the hours, as is the case for language learning. But it actually does look like there are differences in how men and women's brains process language, not just a difference in interest.

I agree with this, I just am unsure about how it translates to learning foreign languages in particular -- at least to the extent that the effect size is huge.

See my other comment. This has been shown empirically.

A brief perusal of pubmed gives me much more mixed results. I'm not convinced.

The world's top polyglots seem to be male, but on average women are pretty clearly more verbal than men. So maybe greater male variability hypothesis comes into play?

I wouldn't disagree, it's just the phrasing of the original reply:

Better at learning foreign languages. This should be obvious to anyone who has ever taken a language class.

Which seems like a stronger observation I have personally observed.

I’ve definitely noticed that among Hispanics, usually women have better English than men.

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