Bored? Learn a foreign language!
Learning a foreign language is an activity that many high schoolers view with drudgery. Despite what my high school peers might have had to say about it, there are many benefits to learning a foreign tongue. And, even if you had a bad time in your ninth grade Spanish class, you should reconsider learning a foreign language.
The first and most obvious benefit of learning a language is better communication. Proficiency in a language will open up sectors of the world to the learner. However, not all languages are created equally. Mastery of Icelandic will clearly be far less useful than fluency in Chinese.
People who learn other languages will be qualified for unique opportunities inaccessible to many people. Some fields, like international business or diplomacy, are impossible to enter without a skill like this. In addition, foreign language experience always looks good on a résumé.
There are also many soft skills associated with language study. The most salient among these is discipline. To become proficient in a language requires great energy and hard work. It demands concentration and intentional study. Going through the process of memorization and continual repetition for the sake of a skill with non-immediate benefits establishes a precedent for discipline in other areas of life. If you can learn a difficult language, you’ll gain confidence in your abilities to pretty much do anything.
Language learning makes traveling more fun, especially for a study abroad. First and foremost, the thought of learning a local tongue gives travelers a goal and challenge to orient their efforts while abroad. Attaining knowledge of a language will allow travelers to immerse themselves in the culture to a degree that would be impossible otherwise. Even if someone doesn’t reach fluency, attempting to learn the language will be a cultural experience in itself. Maybe even learning a language will give you an excuse to travel to places that you would never otherwise visit.
Learning a language will teach you more about your own native tongue. When I learned Swedish, a language with a fairly similar construction to English, I learned so much about the technical components of our language. We are so accustomed to our language that we seldom analyze it. I had never realized what an infinitive verb was, what a supine tense was or how many weird idioms we have. For example, how strange is it that we say we are “going” to do something, or that we use “of course” to respond affirmatively. While some other languages have similar constructions, I had never thought about how bizarre these idioms seem when they are deconstructed.
The way languages are structured can be wildly different. The structure of English is very different from that of the Russian language, a language that uses many alphabetical cases and declensions. By definition, languages are a different way to say the same ideas. Exposure to a foreign language enables the learner to develop and think differently about the world.
College is a time for learning and growth. It’s a time for students to challenge themselves intellectually. To go through university and only take mandatory classes is a waste of a great opportunity. Our university offers introductory classes for at least seven different languages. If at all possible, put yourself out there and go sign up for one in the fall!
As an added bonus, if you started studying a language now, it will give you something to occupy your time with during your COVID-19 quarantine time. We live in a time with access to incredible amounts of information. There is essentially enough information on the internet that you can reach fluency in any language you want. Maybe you didn’t go into quarantine conversational in Afrikaans, but if you dedicate enough time, you can come out conversational in it, or any language you want.
—kfors@gmail.com