Learn to Love Foreign Languages

Author + August 21st, 2007 + no replies

Learning a foreign language is almost a necessity in this day and age. If you learn a foreign language, it makes you more employable in a variety of areas, as well as enhancing your cultural experience. Say what you want about modern translations, but until you learn foreign languages you never get to experience the beauty of foreign writers. Nevertheless, I have only managed to learn one foreign language, and it was so difficult for me that I doubt I will ever try it again. It was just too much work!

 

I took French in high school, but dropped it after I left school. In general, I was a good student. Most subjects came easy to me, but I couldn’t manage to learn foreign language no matter how hard I tried. I loved the French culture, wine, food girls and literature, and I desperately wanted to learn how to speak French, but it just wouldn’t come. Being British probably didn’t help as we have an inbred aversion to learning foreign languages!

 

I only successfully managed to learn foreign language when I finally went to live in France. I spent 10 years there, and they were some of the most difficult years of my life. Ultimately, however, they were some of the most rewarding. I would never have managed to learn a foreign language without doing so, you see.

 

To this day, I believe that the only way to really learn foreign languages is to completely immerse yourself in another culture. If you can speak English at all, you will not learn how to speak a foreign language. Instead, you will keep falling back on your English skills. If you need to learn foreign language in order to interact on a daily basis, however, it will come much more quickly. If I learned a foreign language in a year, you can probably do it using the same methods in six months! To help you get started I do strongly recommend you check out an interactive online language program, run by native speakers. I have some property in Mexico - about to be demolished by Hurricane Dean I fear - so learning Latin American Spanish is almost essential.