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Languages are cool, and you should learn them - why?
Well, a variety of reasons, social, cultural, economic, and biological... yes, that's right,
biological. Languages can help you live longer.
But more on that later. Let's start with why I learn languages,
because we all care about what I have to say...
I learn languages because it's fun. It's fulfilling. It's a project - just seeing
yourself grow in a form of expression is... it's like learning an instrument,
it's its own reward, because at the end you can play that instrument better.
And for those of you who feel the same way, please don't let anything in this video distract you from
that feeling. Intrinsic motivation is always going to be more effective than extrinsic.
But for those of you who don't, that's fine, but I hope this video can encourage
you to take another look at language learning, and not write it off forever.
1: Communication (duh)
There are a lot of people in this world, and you're never going to meet all of them,
but if you ever leave your own country or region, you're likely to encounter people who do not speak
your language - in fact, you're basically guaranteed to, even as an English speaker.
Not everyone speaks English...
and even when they do, it's important to consider the quality of communication.
Being able to take an order of drinks in English is great! But you're never
going to be able to properly talk to that person unless you learn their language,
or they learn yours on a deeper level.
And for some of the languages, and thereby some of the people in the world,
why not be the one to put in the effort?
2: Social connection
Languages are a form of communication,
but in reality, they're more than that. They are deeply personal.
If you live in a small town in a foreign country,
and you hear someone speaking your native language, that's an instant connection right
there - which is something that has happened to me and my family as Swedes in Britain!
And this is by no means just with native speakers. The fact that I speak French,
even though it's very clearly non-native,
has let me connect with people from France, the Congo... it's a social thing.
3: Personal development
Look, all I'm saying is... how much cooler and
more impressive would you be if you spoke more languages?
4: The economy
A lot of people ask me this about my previous video:
why make English speakers learn languages they don't need?
Why use taxpayer money for investing in foreign language education,
when it's just - economically - a waste?
Buuuut, that's not exactly true, is it.
The fact of the matter is, language education is worth it. Lack of language knowledge has a
massive impact on the economy, with some economists estimating that it
costs the UK alone £48 billion a year, or 3.5% of its entire GDP.
The point is that although English is pretty good for buying things,
it's not so good for selling things to a foreign market.
Now, if you're a massive multinational corporation, this is no problem: you can just
hire Germans to run your company in Germany, Indonesians to run it in Indonesia, etc...
But if you're a small to medium-sized company, you can't do that. So for those companies,
language skills in their country of origin is essential. But in countries like the UK,
it's lacking, and that hampers their exports, severely damaging the economy as a whole,
and funneling wealth towards those big companies who can afford to hire multinational staff.
5: Another culture
Reading literature in translation isn't the same as reading the original. No-one likes
watching dubbed films. There is a serious wealth of art and history associated with
every individual language - and a culture you can invest yourself in with deeper linguistic study.
You can survive in a lot of places with just English... and that's fine,
if surviving is your goal, but if you actually want to experience that place fully,
properly engage with it, then you should learn its language.
6: Your biology
Learning languages can make you live longer. Studies have shown
that knowing more than one language delays the onset of dementia by 4 to 4.5 years,
regardless of other factors, such as education status.
In the context of these studies, that is
undoubtedly a statistically significant difference.
We really aren't sure why this happens... but it sure does seem to happen.
Learning languages may be a lot of effort, but it's certainly worth it in the long run.
But you know what isn't a lot of effort, and is still worth it in the long run?
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And I'll see you in the next video.