Learning a new language is more than just communication

With our world becoming so interconnected these days, it’s not so much a luxury anymore to be able to speak another language; it’s becoming more of a necessity. With post-secondary opportunities and job markets becoming increasingly competitive, knowing even just two languages can give you a huge advantage over others applying to the same thing as you. Not only does it make you more competitive, it can also open up doors to you that wouldn’t be there if you only spoke English.

Practical application of language skills

As I mentioned above, knowing a second or third language gives you a great advantage when applying to jobs or even post-secondary, but those are not the only practical uses for your language skills. Travelling is another fantastic opportunity to put your language learning skills to use! Going to a foreign country and being able to communicate with locals in their native language is one of the coolest things, in my humble opinion. It is so neat to go to a foreign country and be completely immersed in a foreign language. Of course it’s intimidating, but it’s a good kind of intimidating 😉

More than communication

Learning another language has more benefits than just being able to communicate with others. Learning a new language challenges the way that you think and understand the world around you. It forces you to think in a way that you may not be used to and in turn gives you new ways to think about things. Studies have shown that being multilingual helps to improve your problem solving and memory skills, as well as fend of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

When I was in Germany this past summer, I was able to understand basic words and conversations even though I don’t speak German. I was able to figure out what certain things meant based on similarities between words in both French and English, as well as within the context of whatever was being said or whatever I was reading. It was exciting to be able to have a certain level of understanding of a language that I didn’t even speak, and I thank being multilingual for that.

The ability to learn more languages faster

I am bilingual in French and English and I’ve recently started to learn Portuguese… I could carry a basic conversation or ask for directions, but I’m far from fluent! I can tell you for sure though that learning French prior to learning Portuguese has help immensely with the  learning process. You see, once you pick up a second language, it makes it easier to pick up other languages. The reason I found it somewhat easy to pick up the Portuguese was because both French and Portuguese have the same background; they’re both Latin based romance languages. There are words in both languages that are either very similar or practically the same. Once you get your head around learning a new language, it makes learning others a whole lot easier. It’s still challenging, believe me, but I think that it’s totally worth it. I can honestly tell you one of my favorite feelings in the world is when you work so hard to learn a new language that your brain starts to feel like mush. Sounds really weird (and maybe I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to learning languages…) but it is one of the most satisfying feelings in the world. That is when you really know that you are learning the language. 

If you’re interested in learning another language here’s a quick list of the 10 easiest ones to learn according to the newspaper The Telegraph, in no particular order:

1. Afrikaans
2. French
3. German
4. Dutch
5. Portuguese
6. Spanish
7. Norwegian
8. Swedish
9. Italian
10. Esperanto

Do you speak more than one language or are you learning another language? Feel free to leave a comment letting me know!