6 Reasons Why You Should Learn A New Language
Have you been thinking about learning a new language recently but aren’t sure if you want to go through with it? It’s definitely a process that requires a lot of time, motivation, and dedication. If you are on the fence about starting to learn a new language, here are six reasons that should make you consider starting that journey.
1. Improves your employment potential
A lot of applicants will have the same things on their resumes, but one of the ways to draw an employer’s eye is seeing that you can speak more than one language. This skill will impress them for a few different reasons.
The first is that they will see you have the drive to achieve hard goals and the skills and motivation to attain those goals. If they see that you went through the effort to improve yourself and your vision of the world around you, then they might consider hiring you since your want to improve might transfer into wanting to improve the company as well.
The second is that not many people in America know how to speak a second language fluently, especially if their first language is English and they grew up in a monolingual home. Yet different languages are being spoken all across the country. So if they see you can speak at least one of those languages, you could be hired because you can communicate to even more clients than they are currently reaching.
Even if you aren’t anywhere near fluent yet, make sure you put it on your resume that you are at least learning a new language. It will show initiative and a drive even if you aren’t fluent yet.
2. To make your travels easier
Do you dream of traveling to different countries and experiencing the world? Well, chances are those countries won’t have your language as their primary one. If you learn their language or at least the basics, then it will make your traveling so much easier and much more pleasant.
The locals will appreciate that you are at least trying to understand their culture and language. Many times they will be patient while you try to find the right words, or will even try to help you if you are visibly struggling.
What’s even better about learning the basics of the language at a minimum, is that you don’t have to carry around an English to X translation book everywhere. Plus you can appreciate the culture a lot more when you’re not worrying as much about understanding signs or directions.
It’s also a smart idea to learn certain phrases that people might say to you if they don’t have the best intentions. You don’t want to be tricked into doing anything bad or dangerous just because you don’t understand what they are saying.
3. Improves memory
Learning a new language can improve your memory as well. You have to remember a whole other set of vocabulary in a language that is not your own. In the beginning, it will be you consciously remembering words and grammar. But as you continue to learn and practice, you won’t even realize that you are actively remembering phrases and such in a whole other language.
There are various studies out there that learning a different language can improve your memory and throw off things like dementia or Alzheimers for at least a few years. Your ability to recollect more than one language can keep your mind sharp as you keep flexing it every time you speak in the language you didn’t grow up with.
However, speaking isn’t the only thing involved in learning a new language. You listen, read, write, and talk. So you are flexing many muscles in your brain at once. As long as you keep it up, you will keep your mind sharp and your memory will improve.
4. Opens doors for new friends
Just think about the amount of friends you might have missed out on because there was a language barrier. If you learn a new language, then that barrier will be torn down and the path to new friendships will be wide open for you. You don’t even have to worry about traveling too far.
Now there are many ways to make new friends. You can do the traditional way of meeting them face-to-face, or you can meet them online. Online might be the best way if you choose a language that isn’t spoken in the area you live in.
These new friends can also serve as connections to limitless possibilities that you might not have thought about before. New cultures, new ideas, new foods, etc.
5. Improves your ability to multi-task
Learning a new language will improve your ability to multi-task because of the many things your brain has to do while you are both learning and practicing. It has to take in the new information while sending signals to the appropriate places to repeat the words and form full, coherent sentences.
If you think about it, you are multi-tasking while you are in a conversation all the time. You are listening and your brain is coming up with an appropriate response at the same time. The biggest part is that during the beginning of learning, you are actively remembering new words, phrases, and grammar while continuing on with your everyday life.
Once you become more fluent and can go back and forth between languages easier, your improved multi-tasking skill will be much more present as you can be hearing in one language, mentally translating a few times, and speaking either in the same one or in a different one entirely.
6. You can appreciate international movies, art, and literature
Much like the benefits of gaining new friends, you will have more access to the world around you through international movies, art, and literature.
These mediums will help you learn the culture of that language even more efficiently since they will help you learn the slang and vernacular that the actual locals will use. By learning these, you won’t seem so much like a tourist but as someone who wants to learn more about the world around them instead of staying in their small monolingual bubble.
You will find that the arts have a lot more in common even across cultures than you might have realized if you didn’t begin that journey.
