Knowing a foreign language doesn’t only increases the number of opportunities you can have in your professional life, but also plays a very important role in your personal life. Here are the 4 main reasons why I personally think everyone should make an effort on learning a second language, or even better, as many languages as possible.
1. World-wide job opportunities
This is the most well-known reason to why the majority of the people learns a new language. When knowing a foreign language, the number of opportunities that could be presented for you during your professional life are increasing. In today’s world, almost every company does business with many countries around the globe and they need people who can follow up with this business model by being able to communicate with their partners or clients. Even when applying for a job in small, local companies, having a second language in your CV will make you stand out from other applicants. But it’s not just about making your CV more attractive: When knowing a foreign language, you don’t only understand the language, but also the culture. This unique skill will allow you to get in a better way how people from other nationalities do business and will help you be the one that seals the deal.
Personal experience: Because I always made an extra effort when learning English during my school time, I was able to acquire almost a perfect level of English, which allowed me to go abroad and work as an Au Pair in the USA. Furthermore, I am able to do the jobs I have today here in Germany, due to my level of German.
2. Being more open-minded and better at multitasking
By studying a second language, it will probably give you the opportunity to travel to other countries where you can practice and perfectionate your language skills. This is the last step when learning a language, because as already mentioned before, knowing a foreign language comes hand in hand with understanding the culture connected to that foreign language. By comprehending or adapting yourself to a new culture, you will automatically learn how to be more open-minded, tolerant and understanding to people with different traditions, ideals or preferences. This will allow you to fit better around the world and connect with numerous of people. It is also proven that bilingual people tend to have better memory, be more creative and better problem solvers, which allow you to learn easier and deal with multitasking activities.
Personal experience: Living in three different countries and speak all of their three languages has definitely helped me become more open-minded towards other cultures. This played a big role when connecting with people from different nationalities and adapting myself better to other cultures.
3. A door to life-time friendships and international love
No matter if you decide to stay in your home country or travel the world, you will very likely someday run into someone who doesn’t speak your mother tongue. It could be that this person was meant to be your new lifelong best friend or the love of your life, but you will never know this if you are not able to actually communicate with him/her. Speaking a foreign language doesn’t only open up a massive pool of potential friends, but it also acts as an instant common denominator when you meet native speakers. Besides, having friends around the globe comes in super handy when traveling and having not only a personal local tour-guide but also a place to crash.
Personal experience: I have been able to meet people from so many different places around the world and have been lucky enough to meet along the way my current best friends and boyfriend.
4. Travel like a local
I am sure that whenever you travel, you of course want to see the Eiffel Tower, but you also want to eat in the best local French restaurant or go to that super cool underground bar. All of this insider tips are easier to get when asking the locals, rather than TripAdvisor. But this will only be possible if you can speak their language or at least a world-wide-spoken language. Traveling will become more unique and definitely cheaper!
Personal experience: During my two-month-trip through Europe, I was able to save so much money by staying with many of my international friends and also experience a lot of cities like a local.
This semester I started learning my fourth language and I am super excited about it. I highly recommend you motivating yourself to learn a new foreign language. It might be hard and frustrating sometimes; I can really get that! But even though I for example, struggle with German quite often, I still keep on learning and practicing it every day, because I know it pays off! The benefits of bilingualism are just extraordinary!
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