Why do we learn foreign languages

Why do we learn foreign languages
Why do we learn foreign languages

Video: 4 reasons to learn a new language | John McWhorter 2024, July

Video: 4 reasons to learn a new language | John McWhorter 2024, July
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Foreign languages ​​are studied at school, then at higher educational institutions, in special language courses. Why is all this necessary? Is it impossible to live your whole life in your favorite city in your country, and when traveling abroad to use the services of guides and translators? Some do it. And others spend energy, time and money on learning the language of a foreign country. And they have their own reasons for this.

As a matter of fact, there are only two reasons for learning foreign languages: practical and psychological. If your work involves business correspondence, telephone conversations in a foreign language or personal communication with representatives of a partner company, then you will absolutely need knowledge of the language. And it doesn’t matter whether you like this language or you hated it from childhood, but you will learn it with a 99% probability. Unless, of course, you want to lose your job. It sometimes happens that you didn’t even think and find yourself in Norway or Vietnam, but fate threw such a fortune. Even if you have a work contract for a whole year or you are going to get a husband who was sent on a business trip abroad, you are unlikely to allow yourself the luxury of not knowing a word from the language of the country where you are going. The better you know the language of the country where you live, the easier it will be to integrate into local society. By mastering the language of a foreign country, you can better understand another Russian knows only “thank you” and “love”. But this is not a reason to abandon the great feeling. In this case, learning the language will be especially easy, because the teacher and assistant will be the one for whom everything was started. Psychological reasons do not imply an urgent need to learn the language. If you have always admired Japan, its culture and people, then the desire to learn Japanese will be natural. If all your friends in your company know English and each vacation comes together to visit New York or go to London for the Christmas holidays, then you will begin to learn the language so as not to stand out from the general background. As a rule, those who learn the language as necessary, succeed in this more. When you learn a language because it is so beautiful or because you are no worse than the other, it can quickly get bored. After all, learning a foreign language is first and foremost a work. The process can be exciting and interesting, but you still have to work and remember a huge amount of information. But the results are worth it. Knowing another language allows you to expand the boundaries of your own world. It becomes larger and brighter, more versatile and interesting.

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