´With languages you are at home everywhere´ – Chinese
proverb
Here are some benefits of learning languages that will take your professional and personal life to the next level:
1) BOOSTING CAREER PROSPECTS
Excellent command of other languages increases significantly your chances to get a dream job and allows you to apply for positions that require you to interact with international teams and communicate with people from different countries. It opens doors to achieve higher management positions, involving international projects and worldwide cooperation. Candidates with language skills are highly valued in recruitment process because of their ability to work in multilingual and multicultural environments. Finally, the European Union recent research indicates that speaking another language can increase your salary between 11% and 35%!
2) ENHANCING YOUR BRAIN POWER, COGNITIVE SKILLS AND MENTAL HEATH
Nothing challenges the brain like learning a language does. Switching between two or more languages is a brain workout as it activates its different areas by processing new sounds, vocabulary and grammatical structures.
Language learning process strengthens neural connections, increases brain plasticity resulting in improved memory functions, attention span, reasoning and better mental agility. Finally, recent studies have shown, that this mental activity preserves cognitive function as we get older, which slows down neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.
3) BOOSTING YOUR CREATIVITY
Knowing a foreign language also impacts your level of creativity. Remember, you are not just memorising vocabulary and grammar rules, but more importantly you are learning a new way of expressing yourself. If you get uncomfortable with speaking in a hesitant manner, your brain will try to find a way to communicate better in a much more natural, fluid way, and that’s the way to creative thinking.
4) ENJOING MORE YOUR TRAVELLING EXPERIENCES AND BROADENING YOUR MIND
When you learn a new language, travelling is experienced from a different perspective. It encourages you to mix with the locals, learn about their culture, traditions, and ways of thinking. In this sense, a new language can make you see things differently, adapt to new circumstances and challenges and broaden your horizons enormously.
To sum up, even if you don’t get completely fluent in another language, the process of learning itself will improve many areas of your life. If you start this journey of a self-development and discovery, apart from evident benefits for your career, you will learn how to face challenges and failures with patience, find out about your strengths and weaknesses , overcome fears and embarrassment, gain more tolerance towards other cultures and experience the world around us in more authentic manner.