Connect with people worldwide through a foreign language!

3 Ways Learning a foreign language will help you connect with people all around the world!

We speak to communicate. Can you just for a minute imagine having the key to communicate with people all over the world in their own language? Can you even mentally, just for a second, grasp the sense of freedom and power you will experience?

It is true that talking to people, is the most natural way to learn a foreign language. By establishing a bond with them, you learn to express yourself in that foreign language, by using the same idioms, expressions and jokes.

There are three definite ways in which learning a new language will help you connect with foreign people.

1. Make foreign friends.

Technology today seems to have eliminated all kinds of borders between countries and has certainly minimized any kind of geographical distance. Through it, social media has established itself as the main way of communication, entertainment and flow of information.

Yes, we can get informed about what is going on in our country. Yes, we may comment on the social news. But we have a window. We have a window to check what’s up in the world around us. We get suggestions of people, all over the globe, who attend the same seminars as we do, are interested in the same hobbies and interests and, however come from a different country.

Language should no longer be a barrier for us to connect with them. We should have the freedom to express our opinions openly, talk about the similarities and differences that may exist between different cultures and get to know people who have the same perspective for life. At the end of the day, we will come to acknowledge that people all over the world, experience life similarly.

If we want to take a narrower look to foreign language learning through foreign friends, this type of friendships offer a learner a kind of knowledge that cannot be gained through books. We will learn the cultural elements that are expressed through this language and not just a rigid grammatical structure. We will learn how to think in the culture of that language and immerse ourselves in it.

Something that could never be achieved even with the best of teachers, textbooks, or schools.

2. Travel

Speaking more than one language offers you the comfort and confidence to dare to travel to places that until previously thought were simply inaccessible to you. You are no longer worried that you will feel stranded if the local population does not communicate in basic English.

Fluency does not seem to matter, since local populations everywhere will enthusiastically help you finish your sentences, or pronounce your words correctly, the moment they realize you are trying to communicate in their language. This indicated a form of respect to the country and its culture.

One more thing here. After the first time you travel and speak the foreign language you were just learning inside a classroom, you will realize something.  The level of happiness and excitement you got after actually experiencing it live, the smiles of local people you talked to and the amazing mistakes that had you laughing for hours, will leave no room for no repetition! You won’t be able to wait until you travel to a foreign country and do it all over again!

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world” as the great Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein so beautifully put it.

3. Work Worldwide.

When your qualifications include fluency in a second language, or a third one or even more, you become a highly attractive candidate for employers all over the globe. It is a clear indication that not only you were dedicated enough to accomplish excellence in your selected field of studies, but you also exhibited the necessary determination to expand your language skills.

Multilingual people are able to communicate with a wider range of people, in multiple communities and countries. We live in the era of startups and borderless entrepreneurship which continually enter new markets, so multilingual professionals highly demanded and rewarded.

These three beautiful aspects of life are just a few of the innumerable domains in which learning a foreign language will help you connect with people all around the world. You will gain a sense of belonging not just to one country and one culture, but you will feel connected to the whole world and learn life, not just a language.