Languages play an important role in our daily life as it serves as a communicative tool that facilitates interaction with other people. We acquire language skills since infancy and as we grow older these language skills are developed in such a way that it allows us to express complex ideas and to convey abstract ideas.
Knowing a language allows us to engage with people who speak the same language. Knowing a language allows us to access information written in that same language. Knowing a language allows us to appreciate more the culture to which that language is part of.
Imagine knowing more than one language. Imagine then overcoming language barriers to read poetry in its original language, to have access to information in other languages! Indeed, at present when information is almost everywhere and linguistic differences are the only things that keep you from getting that much needed information, there is a need for multilinguals. Nowadays, knowing one's mother tongue is not enough, and even fluency in English is not enough. Learning another foreign language is always a plus as it widens your horizons and opens more career opportunities.
I have been fortunate to have been exposed to Fookien, Tagalog, English, and Mandarin since childhood. Since I love reading, I discovered one of the advantages of knowing Chinese as this allowed me to read manga translated into Chinese, like Ranma 1/2, Dragonball, Mojacko, and Doraemon. As a young adolescent infatuated with anything Japanese due to the anime boom in the '90s, I started picking up simple Japanese phrases and words until I decided to study the language by myself. In college I took up European Languages with the main goal of being able to read untranslated Spanish and French literature. I would have loved to learn Russian, Italian, Portuguese, and German, but there's always the problem of time constraint. Instead now I'm back to studying Japanese seeing how useful it will be in the near future.
Autodidactic's Tips on Learning a Foreign Language: Learning a Foreign Language by Self-Study
Knowing a language allows us to engage with people who speak the same language. Knowing a language allows us to access information written in that same language. Knowing a language allows us to appreciate more the culture to which that language is part of.
Imagine knowing more than one language. Imagine then overcoming language barriers to read poetry in its original language, to have access to information in other languages! Indeed, at present when information is almost everywhere and linguistic differences are the only things that keep you from getting that much needed information, there is a need for multilinguals. Nowadays, knowing one's mother tongue is not enough, and even fluency in English is not enough. Learning another foreign language is always a plus as it widens your horizons and opens more career opportunities.
I have been fortunate to have been exposed to Fookien, Tagalog, English, and Mandarin since childhood. Since I love reading, I discovered one of the advantages of knowing Chinese as this allowed me to read manga translated into Chinese, like Ranma 1/2, Dragonball, Mojacko, and Doraemon. As a young adolescent infatuated with anything Japanese due to the anime boom in the '90s, I started picking up simple Japanese phrases and words until I decided to study the language by myself. In college I took up European Languages with the main goal of being able to read untranslated Spanish and French literature. I would have loved to learn Russian, Italian, Portuguese, and German, but there's always the problem of time constraint. Instead now I'm back to studying Japanese seeing how useful it will be in the near future.
Autodidactic's Tips on Learning a Foreign Language: Learning a Foreign Language by Self-Study
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