What is the value of learning a second language?

There are many benefits to learning a second language. I think there are certainly basic benefits like being able to travel to other countries, but there are other personal and psychological reasons to learn another language.

Personally, I just think learning languages is interesting and fun. I’m not very good at foreign languages but I enjoy trying to learn them. In high school I took French and Latin. I don’t remember any Latin, but I’ve studied French since then and lived in a French-speaking country. Right now, I’m studying Japanese, and, in the future, I think it would be fun to study another language. It is just interesting to learn about languages and new idioms and expressions. Each language has its own interesting rules and logic. I think it is fascinating to learn about those rules.

Beyond this I think that studying foreign languages makes people better communicators in their own language. Studying languages makes you think about the differences between your native language and the language you are studying. It makes you think harder about how to use grammar and vocabulary best in your own language. Studying French in particular, possibly because it’s more similar to English than Japanese, gave me a better understanding of how English works. People who have studied other languages know how to think about the best way to say things and how to organize their thoughts in their native language.

Studies have also shown that there are many cognitive benefits to learning a foreign language. People who have studied foreign languages are better at flexible thinking and problem solving. The reason is that when people talk and think in another language they learn to think about the same problem in many different ways. When people who have studied another language are faced with a problem, they can think about the problem in different ways and can think of more creative solutions to problems. Learning a new language can improve the way you think.

Finally, I think when a person travels, they should learn a least some key phrases. I think learning even a little bit of a language can be very useful when you travel. One reason is that it is useful to get around in a foreign country. Another one is that I feel that when people visit another country, they should make an effort to be polite. Especially important are key phrases like ‘thank you’, ‘please’, and ‘could I …’. These phrases show people in other countries that you are trying to be polite. Of course, it’s impossible to learn all of the language and all the customs, but when a person visits another country it is important to learn some of the customs in order to be somewhat polite.

Overall. I think that there are many great benefits to learning a language. I think it’s a great hobby and everybody should try to learn one or two languages for fun. However, even if you don’t like learning languages for fun, there are plenty of practical reasons to study a foreign language.

Nathaniel

Vocabulary
psychological (adjective) – relating to the human mind and feelings
cognitive (adjective) – relating to how people think, understand, and learn
get around (phrasal verb) – to travel to a lot of places or to move from one place to another
practical (adjective) – relating to real situations or actions and not to thoughts or ideas