European Day of Languages : The importance of learning foreign languages

Hello folks,

As some of you may know, last Monday was the European Day of Languages. This day was established by the Council of Europe so as to encourage the learning and promotion of foreign languages in this multicultural and multilingual world. In this entry, I will analyze some reasons why it is extremely important for you to learn foreign languages :

From : http://edl.ecml.at/

1. Learning a language involves getting to know its culture : Learning a foreign language implies getting to know other cultures. As the Canadian singer Buffy Sainte-Marie once expressed : "language  and culture cannot be separated." The language reflects the culture of the country and, in the same way, the culture of the country is reflected in the language, for instance, Eskimos use different words to refer to different tonalities of white because for them white (and snow) is extremely important. 

From : http://quotio.com/quote/Language-and-culture-cannot/100023

2. Personal enrichment : Learning languages  makes your brain more supple. It has been proved that people who learn more languages live longer than people who can't speak foreign languages !  Charlemagne once forecast this by saying : "to possess a second language is to possess a second soul." Poetic, isn't it ?

3. Better jobs opportunities : Languages play an important role in today's job market. Speaking several languages will certainly make a difference in your résumé, especially in big busy cities receiving a bunch of tourists from different countries ! So, if you want to get that promotion you were looking for, or simply... get a job, you may wanna think about learning a foreign language.

4. Travelling : The more languages one speaks, the more countries one can visit and, what is more important, understand everything. Plus, if you don't want to sound like "dagoes", speaking several languages will help you ! 

5. Independence : By learning a language you can travel overseas, become independent, study abroad, get to know native friends and become more open-minded. Like that you can enjoy life with a new perspective. As a man in Eritrea once said : "if I speak one language I can help my country as one man, If I speak two languages, I can help as two men but if I speak all the nine languages, I can speak like nine men."

6 You become a better person : By becoming a speaker of different languages, you see the world in another way. You can understand things more easily, see the world with a new perspective, boost your self-confidence and ease your decision´-making process. In addition, people will surely be impressed by your skills.

7. When you learn a foreign language it is easier to learn another one : Several studies have proved that once you are proficient in a language, it is easier for you to learn the second one. So, why don't you just start right away ? Pay attention to this guy in this video, who is able to speak no less than nine languages incredibly well. 

Impressed ? You can read his tips for you to learn foreign languages in this webpage.

8. Read /watch films : What better way to assimilate the culture of a country that by reading its books and watching its films ? You will learn hundreds of colloquial expressions, cultural patterns and you will improve you language capacity on the way...

9. Metalingual reflection : As you progress with languages, you will think about the language code in itself : verbs, adverbs, adjectives  and stuff like that will suddenly become familiar for you.

What is the reason you love languages ? Post it in a comment. In addition, here you have the link to a very interesting page with some quirks about foreign languages. Don't miss it.