Learning a foreign language is a challenging task, but there are many benefits to be had. There have never been more free educational materials for learning a new language. All that’s needed is the time and motivation to learn something new.
Learning a new language provides benefits for your social life, career, brain health, and self-esteem. You might even have fun.
Consider these benefits of learning a new language:
- You can meet an entirely new group of people. You may live in an area with a large Spanish-speaking population. Or maybe you’d like to have pen pals on the other side of the world. A whole new population of people is available to you when you can speak a second language.
- Give your brain a serious workout and power boost. Studies demonstrate that your memory and critical thinking abilities are enhanced when you learn a new language. It’s a very challenging undertaking that will create new neural pathways in your brain.
- More employment opportunities. Four out of five new jobs are created in response to global trade. You make yourself a more valuable employee and attractive job candidate when you know a foreign language. You might even get the chance to work in another country.
- Gain appreciation for art, music, philosophy, and science. The translations you read of great books aren’t always the best. Imagine being able to read War and Peace in Russian. Knowing a foreign language will give you better access to the art, music, and philosophy of that area of the world.
- You can travel easier and less expensively. While there are great hotels in most of the world with English speaking staffs, they can be expensive. If you know the language, you have more lodging options and won’t require a translator to assist you.
- Slow brain aging. Studies have shown that learning a language can slow the effect of aging on the brain. You can prolong your brain’s vitality by learning a new language.
- Enhance your English. You probably don’t think about your native language very much. We largely learned to speak without a careful consideration of sentence structure or verb tense. You learn these types of things when learning a new language. You’ll view English in a new way.
- Boost your self-esteem and make yourself more interesting. While speaking multiple languages is the norm in many parts of the world, it’s unusual in the United States. You’ll stand out from the crowd and probably feel pretty good about yourself. How many people do you know in your social circle that can speak at least two languages well?
- Enhance your perspective of life and the world. It’s a big world out there. You’ll get to know more about it when you expand your horizons and learn the language of another country or area of the world. Your view of the world is expanded considerably.
- Study or live overseas. Have you ever wanted to live or study overseas? Not knowing the local language can make that dream far more challenging!
What language will you learn? You can be practical and choose the language that you’re most likely to use or the one that will benefit your career. You might decide to learn the language that interests you the most. The choice is up to you.
Learning a language can be fun and interesting. It’s definitely challenging. Get on YouTube and check out a few of the languages that interest you. You’ll benefit in many ways by adding a new language to your repertoire.
