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What can learning a foreign language do for you?
There is, and will probably be in the years to come, quite a lot of talk about the benefits and the importance of learning a second language - even for native English speakers. Many people are currently wondering if the time, energy and financial investment is truly worth it, and if the wonderful benefits claimed by its proponents are true. The next few paragraphs will address some of those concerns and attempt to deliver a bottom line to the question "Should I really decide to learn French in France?"
A very common and increasingly popular desire (especially for North Americans) among the young is to travel abroad and see the world. Times have certainly changed from a couple of generations back when most people never saw the end of their own states. The ease and speed of travel and communications have made all the long distances of old less daunting and people are moving over the surface of the Earth (for both work and pleasure) at a surprising pace.
While it is certainly possible to travel to foreign and exotic lands with no knowledge of the language, a prepared traveller who knows the language of the country he is going to will have a much easier time solving everyday situations that are commonplace on travels, and have a generally more pleasant experience. Knowing the language lets you interact with the locals in their own terms (and almost everyone responds very nicely to a foreigner making an effort to learn their language), and better understand the people and the culture. Besides, it's a great excuse to consider putting the money down for that great French school France that you've been eyeing for some time.
Most Popular Languages
There are around 6700 languages in the world, although some are only found in remote regions where they are spoken only by a small group of people. The top ten languages of the world by number and percentage of the world’s population are:
| 1. |
Chinese Mandarin |
882,475,389 |
13.69% |
| 2. |
Spanish |
325,529,636 |
5.05% |
| 3. |
English |
311,992,760 |
4.84% |
| 4. |
Hindi |
181,780,905 |
2.82% |
| 5. |
Portuguese |
178,557,840 |
2.77% |
| 6. |
Bengali |
172,756,322 |
2.68% |
| 7. |
Russian |
146,327,183 |
2.27% |
| 8. |
Japanese |
128,278,015 |
1.99% |
| 9. |
German |
96,047,358 |
1.49% |
| 10. |
Chinese Wu |
77,998,190 |
1.21% |
In the past European languages such as French, Spanish, Italian and German were popular, but the choices of languages to study these days are changing and Asian languages such as Japanese and Chinese are popular.
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