Better enjoyment of foreign films. A person watching an English translation of a foreign film is missing out on much of what the author originally intended. This is because much is lost in the translation. Often plot lines hinge on very subtle nuances on what is said. Only someone fluent in the original language of the film can fully appreciate it.
Literature. There is a world of reading material, books, and magazines that are inaccessible to you simply because you can only read English. It doesn't matter what your motivations are for reading. If you read because of intellectual curiosity, for entertainment purposes, for practical advice, or to advance your career, there is so much more untapped material out there. If you like to cook exotic foods, fluency in another language would open up a huge untapped source of new recipes.
Smarter kids. Learning a second language increases the verbal and math scores in children. It also improves their memory and ability to solve problems. Multilingual children also tend to become more intelligent as adults and therefore enter into higher paying and more prestigious careers and occupations. The reason for this is that childhood is a critical time for intellectual development since the brains capacity to form new connections are at a maximum during that time.
Better understanding of your own language. You can function in life just fine without understanding the origins of your own language or the reasons for it's particular quirks and why it's grammar is structured the way that it is. But then again the same is true for so many other things that can enhance your life. You don't need to appreciate art or understand how the universe came to be either. Studying other languages can show you how the words and grammar of your own language evolved. This knowledge makes you a more interesting person.
Interacting with people in your own country. The United States is becoming a bilingual country with Spanish as its second language. If you only speak English then there is a sizable chunk of the population with whom you cannot communicate. This also means that more and more television and radio stations will become "off limits" to you. This phenomenon is already happening in many parts of the country where a good fifty percent of your radio dial is filled with Spanish radio stations.
The Internet. Forty three percent of the web sites on the Internet are non English. Visiting these sites and reading the blogs and comments will give you great insight into the culture of these people. If you want to truly understand the rest of the world, you will have to break free of the journalistic biases and filters of your usual news sources and read what the rest of the world thinks in their own words. This is not possible if you are limited to English.
Literature. There is a world of reading material, books, and magazines that are inaccessible to you simply because you can only read English. It doesn't matter what your motivations are for reading. If you read because of intellectual curiosity, for entertainment purposes, for practical advice, or to advance your career, there is so much more untapped material out there. If you like to cook exotic foods, fluency in another language would open up a huge untapped source of new recipes.
Smarter kids. Learning a second language increases the verbal and math scores in children. It also improves their memory and ability to solve problems. Multilingual children also tend to become more intelligent as adults and therefore enter into higher paying and more prestigious careers and occupations. The reason for this is that childhood is a critical time for intellectual development since the brains capacity to form new connections are at a maximum during that time.
Better understanding of your own language. You can function in life just fine without understanding the origins of your own language or the reasons for it's particular quirks and why it's grammar is structured the way that it is. But then again the same is true for so many other things that can enhance your life. You don't need to appreciate art or understand how the universe came to be either. Studying other languages can show you how the words and grammar of your own language evolved. This knowledge makes you a more interesting person.
Interacting with people in your own country. The United States is becoming a bilingual country with Spanish as its second language. If you only speak English then there is a sizable chunk of the population with whom you cannot communicate. This also means that more and more television and radio stations will become "off limits" to you. This phenomenon is already happening in many parts of the country where a good fifty percent of your radio dial is filled with Spanish radio stations.
The Internet. Forty three percent of the web sites on the Internet are non English. Visiting these sites and reading the blogs and comments will give you great insight into the culture of these people. If you want to truly understand the rest of the world, you will have to break free of the journalistic biases and filters of your usual news sources and read what the rest of the world thinks in their own words. This is not possible if you are limited to English.
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