DIL SE
Learning foreign languages can be fun
N. S. NIRUPAMA
BE MULTILINGUAL: Learning a foreign language has a surprising number of advantages.
G. Pulla Reddy College of Pharmacy: “Learning a foreign language has a surprising number of advantages for people of any age group. When you enrol in such a course, most conversations may seem strained and uncomfortable at the beginning but then you realise how important they are to effective communication skills of the student. All the conversations and dialogues in the language will be simulated, but to be able to hold up your end of the conversation confidently, sometimes by adding your own touch, allows you to increase your exposure to the language and simultaneously, to accept that other points of view can exist.”
This is what one of the top teachers at Goethe Zentrum Sharayu Ghurye said when I asked her about the basic importance of learning of an alien language. The Goethe Institute at Munich is the official cultural wing of the German Embassy and its branches are located around the world. They also promote a number of cultural activities and ran a beautifully vibrant awareness programme in May, which is known unofficially as the International Women’s month.
New language doesn’t just impart language skills but the experience gives a new shape to the whole personality. Acceptance of another’s point of view without disparaging it is in a way, suggestive of a person’s levels of patience and overall character. Many students who pass out not only learn a new language, but also become better people. They learn to accept a foreign culture, its idiosyncrasies, its people and the history behind the nation as such.
Why anyone would want to learn German specifically? I’ll have you know that Germany’s trade market in relation to India has been developing at a rapid pace. Numerous articles in the newspapers indicate that and India emerging as a super power and western countries engaging Indian companies in business only prove that foreign languages have their own role to play.
Check out the lucrative aspect of learning a new language, “Interpreters and translators are paid extravagantly (by the EC, the UN, the WHO etc.); their fees rival those of most software engineers’. Most IT companies and many BPOs (to name a few) prefer employees who know at least one foreign language to those who don’t.” Who ever knew there were so many perks to learning a new language? Maybe it’s about time you started learning one eh?
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