Many people believe that learning a foreign language is not worth the time and effort, but there are many reasons to learn a new foreign language. The most common sense for learning another language is for travel purposes. If you already know English, the second popular language in the world is Spanish. Learning Spanish can be not so hard as learning French or Russian, so you can always start from this language.
Other benefits of knowing more than one language include making friends with speakers of different languages and communicating with relatives who do not speak your native tongue. There are also cognitive benefits such as improved mental flexibility and increased brain volume, which some studies have found to be associated with bilingualism. Learning a new language may seem daunting at first, but it is easier than you think!
It Still Helps to Make a Good Impression
Knowing a foreign language, if you think about it, is not surprising. In many countries, bilingualism is the norm. But in England, only about 5% of the population speaks even such a common language as Spanish; the ability to speak a foreign language makes a very favorable impression – both on friends and family and potential employers.
Develops Self-confidence, Willpower, and Self-control
Learning a foreign language is a challenging but rewarding activity that is great for boosting self-esteem and self-confidence. You will have to overcome your laziness and insecurity more than once, meet new people, and you will likely go on a journey that you would not otherwise have decided on in the process. Whoever promises you, it is impossible to learn a foreign language in a week, and even in a month, it will hardly be possible to do it.
A noticeable effect appears not earlier than 3-4 months of regular exercise. Regular exercise for a long time is a great chance to develop willpower and self-control. The more often you practice these qualities, the stronger they become. Moreover you can additionally motivate yourself to learn a foreign language to boost your career. There are studies that show that the main motivators for foreign language learning are still career-related ones:
The more you learn and grow professionally, the more confident you become!
Learning Foreign Languages Contributes to Restoring Brain Cells
Some studies have been carried out that clearly showed the relationship between learning a foreign language language and some regions of the brain. The training program for military translators in some EU countries is intensive: students are given a year to master a new foreign language. Moreover, given the specifics of their work, you need to learn the language, not at the level of the ability to communicate with the hotel staff or read the morning newspaper, but at the level of resolving issues related to international security. An MRI scan, which was performed on the student before and after three months of intensive training, showed the growth of the hippocampus and three different areas of the cortex.
The hippocampus is part of the brain’s limbic system, which is responsible, among other things, for storing information in long-term memory and orientation in space. Curiously, the students who showed the most significant brain growth learned language faster than others in the group.
Expands Your Horizons
Learn languages for all the new opportunities you will indeed have, which you cannot even imagine yet. Start doing something new for yourself if you want to change something in your life but do not know how to do it. If you’re going to come somewhere, the main thing is to start walking along the road. You may find yourself not at all where you imagined in the end when starting learning English, for example.
But that’s not necessarily bad news that your level is low. Likely, the new destination will also prove to be a perfect option. It works 100% with language learning. Just start learning the languages, put your soul into your studies, do not stop when something goes wrong, and new horizons – including those that you never knew about before – will open by themselves.
Wrap Up
Learning a foreign language is beneficial for your career prospects and allows you to explore different cultures. In this blog post, we’ll look at some of the benefits and challenges of learning a new language to determine whether it might be worth your time investment.
