The world really IS shrinking! OK, maybe not literally, but the effect is the same. We’re being exposed to so many languages and cultures that sometimes it may seem like an overload of information. No one can learn everything, or speak every language. But everyone CAN something!

You may think that learning another language is unnecessary. After all, where you live almost everyone can speak English. In your daily life, you never need another language. You might be right that it isn’t totally necessary to learn a second or third language, but think about the things that aren’t necessary – think about the things that you’d LIKE to do. Maybe you’d like to travel in a foreign country, and be able to actually order food without accidentally asking for “a grand elephant under meat sauce.” Or maybe you’d like to be able to talk to other kids who are from a different culture or country. It might even be cool to have a job someday that allows you to travel to other countries and act as a salesperson, diplomat, or representative. There are tons of reasons to learn another language, and a lot of them are about finding what YOU want to do, not about doing what everyone else thinks is good for you.

Of course, there are lots of benefits to knowing another language, beyond being able to take a dream vacation, or land the perfect job when you’re older. You might not think about these reasons to become bilingual (or even trilingual) when you think about learning another language. Nevertheless, they’re the sort of benefits you’d notice after you had studied another language for a while. Think about these cool advantages of knowing another language:

• A language is the gateway to a culture. Once you know French for instance, you’re going to feel a connection with the French culture. If you travel to France, you’ll have a head start on knowing about the people who live there.
• Suddenly, there’s a whole new population that you can communicate with. If you learn another language, you increase the number of people in the world that you can hold a conversation with. Think about how cool it would be to have friends in China or Brazil.
• You’ll get smarter. Studies have found that if you take foreign language courses, you’ll increase your brain’s development and your academic abilities. Research has shown that the more foreign language courses you’ve had, the better you’ll do on the SAT. Funny how learning another language can actually help you understand your own better!
• If you want to go abroad for college, you’ll have the tools to do it. Maybe you’ve toyed with the idea of getting out of the states for college. If you know the language, you’ll be much more likely to get into a university and do well!
• You’ll be able to read books and watch movies in the original language. This might not seem overly exciting, but think about how annoying it is to watch a foreign movie with subtitles. Or worse yet, really bad voice-overs.
• You’ll see the world with new eyes. Learning another language teaches you that there is more than one way to SAY things. You will also learn that there is more than one way to SEE the world, and realize there’s a whole world outside of your own.