Historically, people were struggling to learn new languages.
Knowing new languages benefits us in many different ways based on our interests and purposes. Meanwhile, some people believe that speaking foreign languages is a way to exercise our brain, open a doorway for job opportunities, way to understand deeply about the culture, and some believe that they can find something new within those languages.
I have been often asked, what language do you study and why? And my simple answer was, I am learning a new language because it is fun learn and enjoy learning it. Of course, learning new languages is quite challenging sometimes, but I personally believe that it is one of the greatest means to make our brain work. Sometimes, our brain needs to experience new thing, so it can flexibly respond to something that interferes us. Without practicing or experiencing new things, our brain can hardly remember anything.
Another reason of learning new languages is that we can choose to work in any job position that we have dreamt about. Obviously, in human society, having a proper job is crucially important and that is a must thing to do in life. Thus, to be able to communicate and interact with people from different background helps us to build good relationship for business purpose.
Cultural understanding is still a barrier for those who don't speak any foreign language. To avoid from this alienation, most of us today learn to speak English since it is the international language, and it is spoken in almost every corner on the planet earth. Today, we do not have to concern about cultural barrier anymore and anywhere we go. Some people even live, work, get married with foreigner because they understand each other well.
In academic life, more or less, sort of tasks is assigned for students to complete. The capacity of researching in other languages is worth it and it is also an extra credit you can defeat other students. For instance, I am able to speak and write German, I believe this is one of my credits to do research in German since various of archives can only be found in German.
Last but not the least, we have to know at least one or two languages beside our mother tongue to compete with other people.
Coeun Van
