What Are the Top Reasons for Learning a Second Language?

You may be surprised to discover that over 50% of the world population can speak more than one language. While many people learn a second or third language naturally at home or because they live in a bilingual society, others make the decision to add a foreign language to their skill for any of a number of good reasons.

To Boost Your Career

It’s easy to see why speaking an additional language opens up new career opportunities. For a start, jobs such as translator and tour guide are among those where you need more than one language. Apart from that, speaking a second language opens up huge new swathes of the globe to you. Making your work life easier is an important subject and constantly personal development is the key to doing this well.

French is an official language in 29 countries, Spanish in 20, and English in 67. If you speak all three of these languages, then that’s over 100 countries where you know an official language. Even knowing just two of them gives you enormous possibilities. This can also work to your advantage if you plan on working remotely as a digital nomad using your first language, as knowing another language will make it easier to move around freely.     

This subject arguably becomes even more important for someone whose first language isn’t English. As well as being an official language in so many countries, it’s also commonly used in industries like technology, diplomacy, and science. The chance to go online and learn conversational English with a private tutor makes it far easier to do this than it was in the past. Students can pick their ideal tutor from factors such as price, specialties, and what other languages they speak.

To Travel More Freely

There is certainly something exciting about traveling to a country where you can’t speak a word of the language and don’t understand what is going on around you. However, most people feel more confident about exploring the world when they can converse in more than one language. It’s easier to find a place to stay, choose your food, and make the right transport choices when you can speak to those around you in their own language.

If you spend a long time in a certain country, you should start to learn the language naturally by interacting with people and listening to music or watching TV. Yet, the entire process will be a lot smoother if you already speak it before you leave home. You might even decide to plan a thrilling road trip through a foreign country once you feel confident enough to do so.  

"Language communities of Twitter (Europea" (CC BY 2.0) by Erica _ Fischer

To Make More Friends

Making friends with people from other cultures is a hugely rewarding experience. It can help you become more open-minded and accept other points of view and ways of living. You might also discover tips to help you live a healthy lifestyle or find a new hobby that you love.

Being able to speak two or more languages gives you the chance to find more friends from around the world. 70% of Chinese citizens speak Mandarin, meaning that you can communicate with hundreds of millions of people once you learn it. Over 340 million speak Hindi in India and beyond, while there are 150 million Russian speakers living in the world. If you learn any of these languages, you’re automatically increasing the chance of making new friends online or offline.

These are all amazing reasons for deciding to learn a language, and that’s before we even look at benefits such as how it helps to strengthen and train new areas of your brain. Whether you're looking to boost your career, discover the world, or make new friends, it's clear that learning a language will enrich your life.