Learning foreign languages can be rewarding and a lot of fun. In fact, becoming multilingual can bring many benefits that people don’t even consider. Here’s a list of some of the greatest advantages of learning multiple languages.
Travel the World in Style
One of the foremost benefits of learning new languages is being able to travel the world in style. You won’t struggle to decipher signs anymore and will be able to easily converse with locals and experience the genuine culture instead of just the tourist veneer.
Knowing the language of a place you are visiting abroad also gives you all sorts of work and educational opportunities in other countries and lets you connect on a deep level to the people in another country.¹
Become Smarter
Learning multiple languages makes you smarter and raises your IQ. This has been found in multiple studies, in addition to increased abilities to sense and perceive what’s around you.
To put it another way, learning multiple languages doesn’t just make you a book genius, it actually makes you more aware and observant of what’s around you in general and what it means. It makes you better at life, in other words.²
Look at the World Through a New Lens
Learning different languages doesn’t only make you smarter or able to travel the world more easily, it also opens you up to new perspectives and different cultures.
Learning the roots of words and phrases that may be funny or thought-provoking can make you start to see the human community in new and fresh ways and to gain an appreciation for cultures that may have just seemed odd or abstract previously.³
Better Job Opportunities
Knowing more languages makes you stand out sharply from other job candidates. Even in the US the demand for those who are bilingual, trilingual and more is growing constantly. If you speak various foreign languages you become highly in demand and may draw a much higher salary and chance of promotion.
In fact, job listings for those who spoke another language than English doubled in the US between 2010 and 2015. The truth is that knowing multiple languages makes you a highly attractive candidate in the job field across a range of industries from law to jobs in the manual labor field.⁴
Once You Learn a New Language the Next One Is Easier
Learning a new language activates neural pathways that make it easier to learn a new language. As you become familiar with languages – even very different ones – you will pick up language learning skills that can be applied across the board.
Whether you’re learning French or Thai the skills that you pick up can be put to use on learning another language more easily.
Experts call it metalinguistic awareness. It’s a fancy word that describes something fairly simple. Basically it means your brain becomes well-trained at learning languages and picks up on patterns and differences of the way languages are structured that makes the next one easier to pick up.⁵
New Opportunities
In addition to many new work opportunities and attracting new customers from a different language group, learning new languages opens doors to studying abroad, reading original texts in the source language and communicating with foreign experts and businesses directly instead of through translators or an intermediary.
Languages are in many ways the “keys to the world” and once you speak multiple languages your opportunities to start your own business, partner with others, study in a foreign language, make new friends, have new romantic opportunities and many more aspects will bloom to fruition.¹
[1] https://www.leadwithlanguages.org/why-learn-languages/top-ten-reasons-to-learn-languages
[2] https://blog.busuu.com/benefits-of-learning-a-foreign-language/
[3] https://www.access2interpreters.com/4-benefits-of-learning-multiple-languages/
[4] https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/perspective/news/the-benefits-learning-multiple-languages-1761250
[5] https://www.fluentu.com/blog/advantages-of-learning-a-foreign-language/