5 Reasons To Learn A Foreign Language

During the modern age, with globalization at its height, knowing one or two secondary languages has become more than a simple feat of high class and intelligence, but many times are also a strict requirement. Whether it’s for professional, social or personal reasons, learning at least one foreign language is a must for anyone that wants to keep his or her head up high in today’s society. Let’s take a focused look at 5 of the main reasons that should turn you towards learning a foreign language.

1. Professional Requirement

This is probably the main reason for which one would learn a foreign language. Many professions require the knowledge of at least one or two foreign languages, depending on the field of the job. Most jobs may ask that you know an international language such as English, French, Spanish or German or a business-specific language such as Chinese, Japanese, Russian and so forth. If you’re a native English speaker, you may have it a bit easier, since English is the main international language (and one that is present the most often in job descriptions) but knowing a secondary one might also prove vital.

2. Social Bonus

Yes, knowing a foreign language (or more) is definitely a social bonus. There’s definitely a steep hill to climb between being presented as someone that doesn’t know any foreign language whatsoever against being presented as a polyglot. Another case when knowing a foreign language can be literally a social blessing is when meeting a foreigner whose language you can speak. Your ability to talk with them through their own native tongue will extremely impress them, although you’re on home grounds and this can single-handedly create a great impression on you. If the foreigner happens to be part of a business meeting, this impression can turn to a successful business partnership, bringing you both professional and social satisfactions.

3. Family Communication

It’s often the case where a couple formed out of persons of diverse nationalities understand each other through a commonly known international language such as English. However, they’ll soon want to start learning the other person’s mother tongue, not only for a better communication but also out of respect for them.

4. Personal Satisfaction

Learning a foreign language is one of the highest intellectual goals that one could have on a personal scale. Think about a hard puzzle, or math problem that takes months if not years of constant studying in order to be solved. To solve it may be an arduous one, but the joy at the end is well worth it. It’s the same case with learning a foreign language: the learning process is hardly easy and you will, inevitably, have many minor issues and problems to tackle along the way. You’ll have to focus on various aspects of the problem, such as spelling, grammar, reading, pronunciation and so forth. If you keep your goal in sight, however, and if you don’t lose interest in it, the chances of solving this puzzle are extremely high and the intellectual fulfillment that you get at the end is incomparable to anything else.

5. Keeping Your Mind Healthy

It has been scientifically proven that by learning a new language, the process stimulates your brain in such a way that it will make you more keen on understanding and learning other subjects, including “real” disciplines such as math, physics, chemistry and so forth. Learning a new language requires the memorizing and understanding of several thousand unfamiliar words and concepts, which offers your brain a good training for future occasions where memorizing is a must. After studying a foreign language, you’ll have better results with studying for exams, with information assimilation and also, with keeping your mind healthy and “active” even at an older age.