Why is bilingualism so important?

Following the rare encounter of heat that we have been facing over these past few weeks, its appears to be that July in Britain is the perfect time to invest in a language course as you can have the best of both worlds, a hot vacation and the chance to learn a completely new language, but it seems that you are not alone.

Since recently, the number of people – especially students- deciding to study an additional language in Great Britain has escalated significantly over the last few years, with people choosing to study languages ranging from Russian and Chinese, to English and Spanish. Roughly 600,000 individuals migrate to the UK every year to study English, with most of them coming from countries where English isn’t even a native language.  Moreover, the English Language is the most extensively spoken second language among our population, so the question arises as to why so many people willingly chose to learn another language even if they don’t really need it?

It’s a known fact that speaking more than one language will significantly increase your job prospects as most businesses work with a wide range of international people, which is why bilinguals are most in demand simply because of the fact that they are a vital aid in making relationships among businesses and breaking the language barrier between companies. This clear advantage has been grasped by a lot of individuals as in recent times, 50% of the population within the European Union are now bilingual or multi-lingual indicating that speaking more than one language isn’t just an advantage, it’s a necessity nowadays.

Speaking a foreign language will help you break the communication barrier.

Even though being bilingual increases your job opportunities and allows you to understand a completely new culture, it also has cognitive benefits. Extensive research has shown that bilingual people hold more task abilities and are more attentive, when compared to people who don’t speak a second language. Speaking another language benefits your brain in everyday life, as it allows you to process more information quicker and improve your creativity as well as being able to perform better analytic tasks, and these are considerably important qualities in any job. Another fascinating benefit that bilingualism holds is that it slows down the inevitable decline of your cognitive function.

From these added benefits of speaking another language, you can see why it’s so popular in this day and age, as with the competitively of job positions increasing, the more diverse your knowledge for different cultures is the better you’ll find things. More so, the sheer importance of language has been made evident as of recently when the education board made it compulsory for children from the ages of 5 to learn a second language in schools as children hold an easier ability to learn new things, and even though it slows down as you get older, you are easily able to still learn new languages.

Interestingly, in 2004, English and Spanish speakers were the most in demand within companies and employers as Latinos made up half of the world’s population. Needless to say, as the demand for jobs and the expansion of trades within countries increases, the more linguistically able you are the more possibilities you will have, and the more experiences you will be able to attain as far as experiencing new ways of living in different countries goes.


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