Long-Term Benefits Of Studying A Foreign Language

Write-up by David Sims

When kids are 1st presented with a course of study in a second language, they typically discover they take pleasure in the expertise at first, but then when the hard work sets in, they want out. Given their comparatively limited experience in life, they frequently can not foresee any practical uses of knowing and being able to speak this new language they are learning. This is particularly sad, given that childrens’ young minds do so well with learning new issues like languages.

A similar situation occurs very often when parents “expose” their youngsters to music, usually with piano lessons or possibly enrolling their child to play in a school band. Just when the musical understanding curve begins to steepen, the children (with their aggravated parents’ support) demand to drop lessons. All of a sudden, their previous “interest” evaporates.

Of course, in both instances what is at work is a very natural human tendency to balk at exertion. Humans of all ages basically rationalize that their interest has waned, when what is in fact happening is that they have reached a plateau point…a point where extra exertion is needed to overcome a given set of challenges in the study. At that point, the human mind is loathe to look down the road to the future, to visualize any tangible rewards to continuing with the course of study. It all appears like just too much work.

Redefining Enjoyable

We all want to have enjoyable in life, for each and every moment to be enjoyable or at least not too demanding of our energies. Even so, if we cave into these feelings and let our minds rationalize that we are losing interest due to the fact what we are studying is no longer “enjoyable,” then we lose a extremely great chance.

As parents we want to find approaches to help our children redefine fun. We ourselves can benefit just as a lot when we objectively assess our own situations in life. By redefining “fun” to be a sense of satisfaction after challenge, triumph soon after exertion, we can turn nearly any activity in which we are engaged into “enjoyable.”

Searching Back in Hindsight

How many adults look back and rue the truth that they dropped their piano lessons. That they quit their German class just as they had been beginning to truly be able to speak the language.

There are many lengthy-term advantages to foreign language study, but those rewards will never be conferred if progression in the course of study is abruptly ended.

Keeping a Sense of Perspective

As parents of kids studying a foreign language, we will need to support them to see ahead…to see those lengthy-term positive aspects of realizing one more language, or possibly two or three other languages. In other words, we require to function as our childrens’ eyes, as it had been. We will need to present perspective in the form of communicating verbally and clearly that there is indeed challenge in life’s activities, but that from the perspective of an whole life (not just a childhood) there will be pleasure and a deep sense of accomplishment if they hang in there.

There will also be really practical rewards which can enhance the top quality of life, open up otherwise unattainable opportunities, provide chances for increased economic security, and deepen understanding of our fellow man and our shared human state.

(Naturally, these truths hold true for adult learners as a lot as they do for child learners, and we adults require to remind ourselves to keep long-term perspective alive as well.)

Practical Benefits of Studying a Foreign Language

A lot has been said of the advantages of language study in an ever much more globalized world. The arguments for studying languages in order to thrive in modern-day enterprise are compelling.

Nonetheless, there are other equally important rewards of studying a second language.

Getting Personal

As a kid, I first studied Spanish in Junior High School. Like a lot of kids, that was basically the language offered and it was required. I’m not positive I enjoyed understanding Spanish, but I did sense my mind opening up. Suddenly my brain was hearing all new sounds, new nuances, new emphases. At as soon as the world seemed like a significantly bigger location than before, and but (paradoxically) it also seemed far more inside my grasp and in that sense became a lot more intimate and less intimidating.

As my mind opened up, I found to my amazement that I could reason in a new language whose grammar and construction were different from my own language of English. The world seemed to grow to be more three-dimensional, I could see it from one more vantage point. I began dreaming in Spanish…wow!

Times 3

This expertise repeated itself when I was thrust into a third-year French class at a new school. As far as the powers that be at the new school had been concerned, I was a certain age and in a particular grade, so I would be in French three regardless of whether or not I’d ever seen or heard a word of it prior to. I persevered, due to the fact I was forced to persevere by an external entity (the school) and because I wasn’t allowed to “lose interest” as discussed at the beginning of this post, I produced it over that plateau point and there were good issues on the other side…there had been lengthy-term positive aspects.

Again when I studied Russian with the local college professor each and every week in her residence. My dad and brother and I went weekly to learn this extremely different language, complete with its cyrillic alphabet and one more set of new sounds. We would sit at her dining room table and read elementary school primers in Russian, and we would tune into Radio Moscow with her shortwave radio.

And finally again when I took German in High School. (By this time, as you may guess, I was truly beginning to take pleasure in languages. I was beginning to have “enjoyable.”)

The Positive aspects, As Promised

So what had been my long-term advantages of studying a foreign language? Well for starters, my understanding of my own English language grew substantially: by learning different distinct grammatical constructions (and the “foreign” thought processes behind them), I came to have a far more mature understanding of the use of English structure, grammar, and style (and, in turn, the thought processes behind them).

The farther I went in learning other languages, the far more other nations and peoples all around the globe became solid and real, and gradually those other nations and those other peoples were transformed into parents and children just like my family members. That realization of similarity is something the world cannot have too much of. With out a sense of shared humanity, nations merely compete, conquer, and kill. Studying foreign languages gave me a sense of connection with other peoples, and that sense helps me to see other peoples and other nations much more clearly nowadays.

Are these advantages “fun”? When I was a kid, I probably would have said not. Even so, I think these advantages have entirely moulded me into a diverse becoming. A individual who has far more compassion for folks around the world, due to the fact I’m not so frightened of them. Contrary to what we have been told all our lives, ignorance is not bliss.

Practical Advantages Too

Yes, there were also practical rewards to studying the numerous languages I studied: foreign movies became more accessible, novels by foreign authors (even in English translation) seemed far more transparent, distinct technical terms in music such as “allegro non troppo” and “sehr markiert” had a greater depth of meaning.

I uncover, too, that the much more I learned of other languages (whether Spanish, French, Russian or German) the much more flexible my mind became. So how does flexibility result in any practical value? Well, when I required to understand new and very complex software program programs at work – in order to upgrade, and later maintain, my job – that flexibility helped me to understand Photoshop, to understand PageMaker, Dreamweaver, Ventura Publisher…and how to code HTML and CSS and Javascript. After all, speaking a foreign language isn’t all that different from “speaking” code. But you cannot do it with out a particular quantity of flexibility.

It’s In no way Too Late to Understand

Studying a new language can indeed be enjoyable. It can present a sense of wonder, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of adventure. The practical value of realizing another language when travelling abroad or when doing organization in a global setting is inestimable. Exercising your brain, developing its flexibility, can open up all sorts of new avenues for you.

About the Author

David Sims is a cellist and web designer. He enjoys reading, collecting recordings of his favorite classical music artists and, of course, playing the cello himself. He loves to write, and has recently begun blogging at Dave’s Blog Engine [http://davesblogengine.com/].