123: One brain, two languages

For the first three years of Justin Davidson's childhood in Chicago, his mom spoke only Spanish to him. Although he never spoke the language as a young child, when Davidson began to learn Spanish in middle school, it came very quickly to him, and over the years, he became bilingual.

Now an associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Davidson is part of a research team that has discovered where in the brain bilinguals process and store language-specific sounds and sound sequences. The research project is ongoing.

This is the final episode of a three-part series with Davidson about language in the U.S. Listen to the first two episodes: "A linguist's quest to legitimize U.S. Spanish" and "A language divided."

Photo courtesy of Justin Davidson.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Listen to the episode and read the transcript on Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu).

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