Key points

Bilingualism enriches the brain, but it also brings natural hesitations and gaps in fluency.

Language shapes perception, identity, and even the thoughts we believe are our own.

Words we speak fluently may reflect inherited and borrowed ideas. Genuine thinking can result in pauses.

Let's embrace speech hesitation: it can be reflect authenticity, originality, and deep thinking.

A recent large-scale study showed that speaking more than one language can protect the brain for age-related changes. Although the study did not directly examine brain mechanisms, scientists have long theorized that managing multiple languages develop extra language centers, engages the brain’s executive system, and may even be associated with larger hippocampus volume.

I grew up in Japan, so Englis

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