my exposition of English class! PART 2! There’s more evidence that speaking a second language can delay the onset of dementia later in life. Conducted in India, the largest study of its kind so far found that speaking two languages slowed the start of three types of dementia — including Alzheimer’s disease — by an average of 4 years. “Being bilingual is a particularly efficient and effective type of mental training,” said Dr. Thomas H. Bak, a researcher at The University of Edinburgh. “In a way, I have to selectively activate one language and deactivate the other language. This switching really requires attention.” That kind of attention keeps the brain nimble and may ward off not only Alzheimer’s disease, but other cognitive conditions such as frontotemporal dementia and vascular dementia, the new study found. The researchers examined case records of 648 patients with dementia who entered a memory clinic. Slightly more than half of the patients, some 391, spoke more than one language in a place where many people grow up learning three or more languages, including Telugu and Dakkhini along with English and Hindi. “It really brought up the question, is it the bilingualism or is it is being an immigrant?” he said. “They have very different lifestyles, very different diets, which can affect the outcome.” Still, those studies also found that speaking more than one language delayed dementia by the same span of time, four to five years. “If I live in Hyderabad, I will be practically always switching,” said Bak. “There will not be a day when I don’t have a chance to practice.” The researchers found that patients who spoke a single language developed the first symptoms of dementia at age 61, versus age 65 in those who were bilingual. The delay was slightly more than three years for Alzheimer’s disease, but about six years for frontotemporal dementia and about 3 years for vascular dementia. In people who couldn’t read, the delay of dementia was about six years later in those who were bilingual versus those who spoke only one language — evidence that education isn’t the key in postponing problems, the researchers said. The effect of bilingualism on dementia onset was independent of other factors including education, gender, occupation and whether patients lived in urban or rural areas, the authors said.