When we were in high school one important aspect that was stressed was learning a new language. Some of us managed to somehow bypass that requirement by leaning more into the sciences and others went only so far with the language of their choice before quitting as soon as the secondary school became a thing of the past.
It is easy to move on and forget any importance of foreign languages as we pursue our daily objectives that lead up to our life goals. Though on this blog we have stressed the importance of travelling and embracing new cultures and experiences as you move out through life but if you try to embrace everything but the language you are missing out on a whole lot. Languages are nearly half of what make a nation and a people what they are.
TOP REASONS TO LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE
1. It increases your value. Overall, learning a new language, especially fluently, can increase how much you’re worth if you take advantage of it. Add the fact that you can speak a different language to your C.V and you will stand a higher chance of getting a job you are seeking than someone who can only speak one.
2. It gives you more opportunities. Having more value automatically places you in a position to receive more opportunities. If your job requires mobility, for example, something like the U.N your boss is more likely to send someone who has a better chance of being understood.
3. It more than doubles the amount of people you can communicate to. If you think about it that’s opening up a whole new country, or countries for you to share business ideas, to live in, to gain wisdom from, and to learn why they do what they do and what works in those countries that doesn’t work back home.
4. It can be a fun family challenge. If you are looking for ways to bond as a family, with your kids and spouse, learning a language is a brilliant idea. You would be surprised at how quickly children pick up on new languages, giving you a healthy dose of good competition, and you can have one day a week in the house where everyone is only allowed to speak that language and see how much fun that is.
5. It is not that hard to learn. Honestly, you have accomplished and surpassed much more difficult challenges in your life. If you dedicatedly put your mind to it you can easily incorporate lessons into one year of your life as you learn and come out of the year having achieved something that is more beneficial to you than you would think.
So now that we have established the importance of learning a new language, you may be confused about where to start. My first suggestion of a language to study would be German. I may be a little biased as Germany is close to my heart, being the first country I ever visited outside of Africa but there are plenty of reasons why German is an almost necessary addition to do list for the next year.
Top Reasons for learning German
1. German is practical. Most people fall in love with whimsical, romantic languages, such as French, and Spanish which are definitely good languages to learn but when starting from scratch, English speakers will find it much easier to learn German as the roots are practically the same.
2. German is the number one most widely spoken language in Europe. Not only have the residents of Germany spoken German. It is also an official language of Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein. And it is the native language of a significant portion of the population in northern Italy, eastern Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, eastern France, parts of Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Romania, as well as in other parts of Europe.
While learning German can connect you to 120 million native speakers around the globe, remember that many people also learn German as a second language. It is the 3rd most popular foreign language taught worldwide and the second most popular in Europe and Japan, after English.
3. Opportunity; opportunity! Mentioned earlier was that one of the top reasons for learning a new language would be that opens up doors, well German opens up more doors than you can count. Germany has the 3rd strongest economy and is the #1 export nation in the world. Germany’s economic strength equals business opportunities. Multinational business opportunities exist throughout the European Union and in the Eastern European countries, where German is the second most spoken language after Russian. Companies like BMW, Daimler, Siemens, Lufthansa, SAP, Bosch, Infineon, BASF, and many others need international partners. The Japanese, who have the 2nd most powerful economy in the world, understand the business advantages that knowledge of German will bring them: 68% of Japanese students study German.
In these articles learning German, Studying in Germany, and why German you will find more than thirty reasons in all why learning German is efficient and probably highly necessary if you are interested in expanding and growing your worth, or the worth of your product if you have one.
Finally, if you are wondering where you can take this course, I fully recommend the Goethe Institute. Two of my friends personally studied there for a period of time before moving to Germany where they now live and work. They offer basic courses that are excellent for beginners and if you don’t have that much time to take off to study a language, they even offer crash courses where you fully get your money worth in value. If you would like to find out more information about the Goethe Institute then go here.
