Make Friends From Foreign Countries
One of the best benefits of learning a second language is the ability to make friends from all over the world! With social media and travel becoming increasingly common, its easier than ever to connect with people from other cultures. If your child knows more than one language, theyll be able to communicate with their new friends without relying on translation apps.
You Will Enjoy Increased Mobility
There are many reasons why people leave their homeland and move to other places.Some look for a better life, others try to find political freedom, love or religious tolerance.
Whatever the reasons might be, knowing foreign languages significantly increases your mobility by removing language barriers and increasing the chances of employment.
Whats more, a stay abroad can positively influence your employability even if you come back to your motherland.
The risk of long-term unemployment after graduation was 50% lower for mobile students than for non-mobile students. Even five years after graduation, the unemployment rate of mobile students was still 23% lower. Also 50% fewer mobile students than non-mobile students needed more than 12 months to find their first job. The Erasmus Impact Study
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Have Time To Bond With Your Child
If youre bilingual yourself or a foreign language enthusiast, teaching your child a second language is a great way to bond with them. You can share your love of the language and culture with them and help them to understand where you come from. Its also a great opportunity to spend some quality time together!
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Second Language Educational Benefits:
Higher Test Scores: Numerous reports have proven students who have studied a foreign language perform much better than their monolingual peers on many standardized tests, including all sections of the SAT. In fact, the 2007 College Bound Seniors report, issued by the College Board, which administers the SAT, shows significant benefits of studying a foreign language. The report shows that students with 4 or more years of foreign language study score on average 140 points higher than students with half a year or less experience.
Better and more advanced reading skills: A study undertaken by York University in Canada suggests that bilingual childrens knowledge of a second language gives them an advantage in learning to read.
Greater confidence: Children are always discovering new things, and for children learning a language comes to them more naturally and tends to be fun as they learn in play type activities. This accomplishment gives them the confidence they need, as well.
Natural-sounding, native-like accent: Children are always mimicking what they hear. They are uniquely attuned to slight differences in tone and sound. Their sensitive ears help them pick up on and duplicate the tricky sounds adults and even adolescents often stumble over. By starting early, your children can speak smoothly and confidently.
Improve Your Communication Skills
This effect of learning languages is rather obvious but itâs nevertheless worth emphasizing. First, the main purpose of learning a foreign language is to get a new tool for communication. However, it also enables you to familiarize yourself with a new culture. Learning a language is also impossible without practice. You have to talk to native speakers, attend language meetups, or use conversation exchanges.
âCommunication is also a skill, and you wonât be able to develop it if you donât have enough practice. Learning a new language encourages you to communicate with people more often so you can not only learn how to speak another language but also how to communicate more effectively, in general,â adds Adam Simon, content writer at LegitWritingServices, a writing service review site and education blog.
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A Case For Emphasizing Secondary Language Education In The United States
In an increasingly globalized world, where technology is increasingly making communication faster and more efficient, it becomes even more pressing for citizens to be competent in other languages. Yet the United States remains the only industrialized country that allows students to graduate from high school without credits in a foreign language. By the time most students begin a second language in middle school at the age of 14, it is often too late for them to become truly proficient in another language. On top of that, only 10 states require some type of second language credits to graduate from high school whereas in many European countries children begin to learn a second language from 6-9 years old, or in some cases 3 years old. This stark difference in the age of when a language is taught may account for the fact that in the United States about 9% of the population is multilingual, whereas in Europe 52.7% of the population is multilingual . I believe there needs to be an incorporation of a stronger foreign language program in the United States education system because learning a second language is and will continue to become increasingly important in our connected world. In total, the United States would benefit from emphasizing learning foreign language through economic and job possibilities, creating cosmopolitan citizens, and providing cognitive and personal benefits to the individual.
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The Top 10 Social Benefits Of Learning A Foreign Language
Everyone has their own reasons for learning a language, but heres what they all share in common: receiving life-changing benefits. In this article, language teacher will show you 10 social benefits of learning a foreign language
When most students think of learning a foreign language, they think of the academic benefits alone: getting into college, impressing a future employer, or gaining an edge in the global marketplace. What many students dont realize is that there are also tremendous social benefits to learning a foreign language.
Speaking another language can help you make new friends from all over the world, gain a deeper understanding of other cultures, and even improve your romantic prospects! So if youre looking for ways to boost your social life, learning a foreign language is definitely one avenue worth exploring.
Learning a foreign language can benefit you in real and measurable ways thats true. In fact, the include higher salaries, more job opportunities, and healthier lives.
And yet, despite evidence that learning a foreign language is incredibly beneficial, many Americans remain monolingual. Even with language courses in school, the majority of young adults speak only a single language. can avoid many roadblocks that adults and young adults frequently face.
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Career Benefits Of Learning A Second Language
Play Games In The New Language
Children unconsciously learn a lot about the world through everyday activities. One of the best ways they learn and retain information is through games because having fun makes learning much easier!
There are a ton of games and activities designed to help kids learn a new language. If your child is learning French, check out these fun French learning games for kids!
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New Languages Offer You The Chance To Meet New People
Being able to speak another language opens you up to other cultures and to other people. Just the process of attending classes for the language exposes you to new ideas and groups of people.
You will be able to travel and speak with people, building up your networking base as well as your friend base.
Why Learn A Second Language Because Its Life
If you canât tell by these 17 reasons, learning a language could change your life. It could lead to new friends, new happiness, new locations, or new careers. The possibilities are endless itâs only limited by your own creativity and determination.
So go forth, and reap the benefits of learning another language!
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You Will Think Faster
In a small study, bilingual people were about a half-second faster than monolinguals at executing novel instructions such as add 1 to x, divide y by 2, and sum the results.
Andrea Stocco and Chantel S. Prat of the University of Washington who conducted the research say the findings are in line with previous studies showing that bilingual children show superior performance on non-linguistic tasks.
References:Stocco, A., Yamasaki, B. L., Natalenko, R., & Prat, C. S. Bilingual brain training: A neurobiological framework of how bilingual experience improves executive function. International Journal of Bilingualism.
You Will Be Better At Multitasking
Im not a fan of multitasking since its harmful to your productivity.
However, according to researchconducted by Brian Gold, learning a language increases brain flexibility, making it easy to switch tasks in just seconds. Study participants were better at adapting and were able to handle unexpected situations much better than monolinguals.
Thats great. But the real question is why were they better?
The plausible explanation is that when we learn a new language, we frequently jump between our familiar first language and the new one, making connections to help us retain what were learning.
This linguistic workout activates different areas of our brain. The more we switch between languages, the more those brain zones become accustomed to working. Once theyve become accustomed to this type of workout, those same areas start helping to switch between tasks beyond language.
References:Brian T. Gold, Chobok Kim, Nathan F. Johnson, Richard J. Kryscio and Charles D. Smith . Lifelong Bilingualism Maintains Neural Efficiency for Cognitive Control in Aging.
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You Will Increase Your Global Awareness & Understanding
While studying another language, you not only learn how to communicate in that language, you also get to know a lot about the country, the culture, and the people. As you progress, you begin to better understand and sympathize with the people who speak the language.
Discovering their history, you experience their pain, share their victories. You begin to see the world through their eyes. And then the magic happens you create a connection between your own culture and language to theirs and you develop a deeper understanding of your own language and culture.
That often makes you more aware and appreciative of the unique qualities within your own language, people, and culture.
Makes You A Stronger Job Candidate
Todays globally connected economy means that businesses have a need for anyone who can communicate in more than one language. Any smart multinational company would be thrilled to add a qualified bilingual speaker to their team.
Learning a second language can both open new doors and give you a leg up on other candidates. Careers where fluency in a foreign language is most useful include international relations, consulting, customer service, marketing, healthcare and hospitality, among others.
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Brain Structure Facilitates Second Language
On a biological level, children are like sponges. The brain of a child is designed to absorb new information unconsciously. They do this similarly to the way that we, as adults, unconsciously learn song lyrics, rhythms, and melodies. Dr. Paul Thompson, a neurology professor at UCLA, and his team found that the brain systems specialized in learning new languages grow rapidly from around six years old until puberty. Then these systems basically shut down and stop growing from ages 11 to 15, during puberty. Click HEREto read more about the study.
You Can Help More People
Studying a foreign language doesnt have to be all about you.
Perhaps its obvious, but speaking another language allows you to help more people.
For example, if youre a certified teacher with multilingual abilities, consider using your unique language skills to teach others. You could help out refugees in your home country, tutor students while living abroad or simply teach your friends and family the language you speak.
If you cant or dont want to teach, theres volunteer programs around the world where multilingual speakers are a particularly valuable asset to the team. Medical assistance programs, educational consultancies or cultural events are good places to find volunteer opportunities.
Being the bridge of communication between cultures is a great feeling, and the joy youll get from helping someone in need will make all the hard work of learning the language worth it.
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Learning A Second Language Prevents Future Age
Many studies have hypothesized that people who speak a second language regularly may be able to delay Alzheimers disease by 4.5 years.
New research published in the journal Neuropsychologia reveals that bilingualism makes changes in brain structure that are linked with resilience against Alzheimers disease and mild cognitive impairment.
Researchers reason that this is due to the constant workout that a bilingual brain experiences as they constantly filter through information in two languages.
Click here to read to full article.
It Enhances Your Decision
Do you spend hours deliberating over what to eat for lunch? Or which shoes you should buy? If so, learning a new language might make you a little more decisive. Researchers from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona suggest that using a foreign language provides people some emotional distance, which effectively allows them to take the more utilitarian action.
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It Improves Focus And Attention Span
Attention spans are getting shorter, with smartphones and other mobile options making it harder to concentrate on anything for very long. The average attention span has gone down from twelve seconds to eight seconds.
One of the reasons to learn a new language is that you can improve your attention span. It can help with focusing and blocking out distractions. A 2012 Northwestern University study found that bilingual people find it easier to pay attention and to block distractions.
Multilingual people have learned how to tune out unimportant information and how to focus on what is important. Fluently bilingual people do not make language substitution mistakes because of code-switching. It is the process of selecting a language and it helps prioritize information.
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It Might Help Boost Your Self
Learning a new language and using it in casual conversation makes you do something that is difficult. You will be afraid of making mistakes, but that gets better the more you do it. This helps in all aspects of life, since it trains your brain to do things it may not be comfortable with.
The more you speak the second language and engage with others in that language, the more you will boost your self-esteem. That, in turn, will encourage you to keep trying, creating a cycle of positive reinforcement.
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Surprising Benefits Of Learning A Language
Proficiency in another language is a vital skill in todays interconnected world. In addition to introducing you to new cultures and ways of thinking, science also suggests that learning a new language can unlock your career potential and strengthen the way your brain works.
Here are six ways learning a language can open doors and transform aspects of your life.
Children Learning Two Languages At Once Have Increased Cultural Awareness
When you think of culture, what do you think of? Do you think of music, like the Spanish Flamenco? Do you think of Italian Renaissance art? Maybe you think of your favorite Chinese restaurant in town or the recent resurgence of Japanese anime.
While these are all valid common cultural practices, have you ever thought of language as part of a culture?
In any particular culture, language is used to communicate ideas across its associated people. It is a shared practice used across generations, connecting its speakers, new and old.
Somewhere along the way in every language, words and grammar rules were established and the language spread across nations and cultures. Then, somewhere along the way in those cultures, variations and dialects of the language developed. Even if a particular cultures common language did not originate within that culture, the language was uniquely adapted to that particular group of people
Oftentimes, we like to think of language and culture as separate entities When I speak English, for example, I dont exactly think of myself as expressing my culture, but the reality is that language and culture are more complementary than we think. Think of food… There is a reason we still call quesadillas, pretzels, and sushi by their native namesculture and language are heavily intertwined!
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