Are you wondering why anyone would want to learn a new language when their native English is already a bit challenging? Can anybody really make you want to learn a foreign language? Especially when we have those apps that can translate written words from a photo, or even talk for you?
Well I am going to go full on Barney Stinson mode (How I Met Your Mother reference in case you don’t know): « Challenge accepted »!
Sure, learning a second language can seem challenging or difficult at first. However it is fun, and it will produce so many benefits for you. It can boost your self-esteem (imagine being in a fancy restaurant and knowing what escargots means). It can change your social life, your career, your cognitive functions (aka brain, it sounded very clever).
You cannot not consider it! All you need is motivation and a bit of time.
To figure out how to find the time to learn, this article will definitely help you.
As for the motivation part: here are the top 10 reasons why you need to learn a foreign language right now!
- Boost your self-esteem. The truth is we all know a bit of this and that in several languages, but really, actually, taking the time to learn and speak a new language is not the norm everywhere yet. It will make you stand out, and can help you feel good about yourself. Do you know a lot of people in your inner circle that speak different languages? I remember, when I grew up, I was the only one who spoke English in my small little French town. We were the only family that spoke English in our village, so everyone knew us and every time I’d get asked, « can you say this in English? How do you say that? ».
- Open a whole new world to you. Let’s fly on that magic carpet (if you guessed the Aladdin reference, kudos) and visit the rest of the world (or parts of it anyway). You can have pen pals far away from your home, you can understand all those parts of a neighborhood populated with a large Spanish, Chinese or French-speaking population. A whole new population of people is available to you when you can speak a second language.
- Keep your brain moving and working. Studies show that your memory and critical thinking abilities are enhanced when you learn a new language. New connexions, neural pathways for brainiacs, are created in your brain.
- Revamp your resume and help your career. More and more jobs require you to speak one or two foreign languages nowadays. Speaking a second, or third, language will definitely be favorable to you in case of a promotion or while looking for a job in almost all areas.
- Find a new way to expand your culture through art, music, philosophy, and science. Imagine reading a classic in its original version? It could be L’étranger d’Albert Camus, Война и мир by Tolstoy, Cien años de Soledad by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and you’d understand it all. How about learning a famous song in French or Spanish, and not sound super awkward muttering randoms sounds as words?
- Make travel smoother and more fun. Most of the time, people in the tourism business will try to speak English. Nonetheless, depending on where you want to sleep, eat, it could prove difficult to find English-speaking people; meaning more affordable places are not always filled with multi-linguists as hosts. You can also access places or museums that are less known, places that are underrated, those quaint remote areas, if you can manage to hold a conversation in a foreign language.
- Slow brain aging. Who doesn’t want to stay younger? Studies have shown that the aging process is slowed when learning a foreign language. It goes hand in hand with reason #3. You can prolong your brain’s vitality by learning a new language. Learning a new language can, for instance, help prevent or defer Alzheimer’s disease.
- Have a new appreciation for your own mother tongue. When you start learning a foreign language you have to move through grammar, conjugation, spelling. That will definitely make you more appreciative of the work you went through while in school and in general of your teachers’s work.
- Study abroad or live in a new country. I agree one can still do that without knowing the language, but it will be more daunting and an arduous task. Speaking the language of the country you’d like to move to or where you’d like to study is often a prerequisite as well. It is always easier when you speak the language.
- If not for you, you can also do it for the future: your children. I like to sound dramatic. As a parent speaking more than one language, I firmly believe that children grow up to be more open-minded and better at certain subjects in life when they are raised in a multi-cultural, multi-language environment. A parent speaking a foreign language will also transmit the taste for foreign languages and for travel to his offspring. You can also have you children learn with you, and make it a family activity with travel ideas, fun activities, books to read, movies to watch together. All the while learning.
That about wraps up our little list of the top 10 reasons you need to learn a foreign language.
Can you feel the motivation burning inside you now?
Now all you need is to figure out which language to learn. Well lucky for you, look no further: this foreign language needs to be French! Found out why here.
