It’s never too late to learn a new language. Need any reasons to be motivated? We can give you twenty reasons for learning a new language!
It’s never too late to start or have another go: whether you decide to learn English, take Italian classes or study Chinese, there are many advantages to learning a new language. If in doubt, be sure to consult our twenty reasons for learning a new language.
Learning a New Language Is a Source of Personal Enrichment
1. When you are abroad, being able to speak the local language means you benefit from a much richer experience as you can interact with locals and learn more about them and their culture.
2. The best thing about learning a new language, in addition to the practical aspects, is that, as not everybody speaks English or French, being able to communicate in the local language means you can be more independent and manage your own agenda.
3. If you address someone in their own language, they will be more willing to trust and help you, just as a foreigner who makes an effort to speak to us in our own language is especially welcome.
4. The intercultural relations you can build by learning a new language are especially fulfilling at a human level.
5. Getting to know someone else (“the other”) is always an opportunity to develop a better understanding of yourself, and the same applies to languages and cultures.
6. Improving your memory : studies have shown that people who speak several languages more easily retain information such as shopping lists or other instructions; they are also better at distinguishing between information of differing importance and priority.
7. Learning a new language exercises your brain, as it involves storing and using new knowledge and thus, you and your brain will stay younger for longer.
8. You can learn to think differently and look at problems from a new perspective.
9. Your brain will be more flexible and adapt better, because according to Claude Hagège, “bilingual people have a more malleable and superior cognitive flexibility than their monolingual counterparts. Having a second language helps to develop verbal intelligence, conceptual training and overall reasoning, as well as stimulating the discovery of rules underlying problem-solving.”
10. Some studies suggest that bilingual people are happier, richer, sexier…
Speaking a Foreign Language Is a Fantastic Professional Asset
11. Real opportunities can arise during business trips if you can speak the local language : make the most of them!
12. Mastering several languages is always a plus for your resumé: promotions are also earned by an executive’s ability to communicate with other parts of the world.
13. The previous point is all the more relevant if you’re the only employee in the company that took in-company language classes and speaks the language well: you will be truly indispensable.
14. If you can make a customer or partner feel welcome in their own language, negotiations are certain to get off on the right foot.
15. If the opportunity to live abroad or even emigrate is on offer, company bosses will always choose an employee that speaks at least a little of the language of the country concerned. If an experience of this kind interests you, you should start taking courses in Spanish, English or any other language right away.
16. Reading in different languages allows you to keep up to date on the current economic situation in different linguistic regions, thereby increasing your competitiveness – knowledge is power …
17. Learning a new language will also improve your communication skills: in fact, when learning a language, one becomes more sensitive to certain mechanisms, such as grammar, verb conjugation and sentence structure, which also has a positive effect on the use of one’s mother tongue.
18. More than a third of corporations hire employees on the basis on their language skills.
19. Multilingual staff can, in some sectors, expect to be paid a salary 20% higher than their peers.
20. Learning a language on corporate language courses is obviously a good thing; but if you can show that you have learned a foreign language on your own, using your own means, you will be showing your (future) employers a degree of discipline and career-projection which they will find more than interesting.
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