by Diana Schonhut

Created on: March 13, 2009

The main benefit of learning a foreign language is that it teaches you so much you didn't know about your own. Not until you have tried to understand the parts of a different language do you realise how much you already know about the language you speak yourself and how it came to be that way.

Ok, so learning a new vocabulary can be something of a trial: a new word for 'dog' or 'cat' or whatever isn't that interesting in itself, but once you start to learn these new words, it's interesting to compare them to the ones you already know. How come 'cat' in French is 'chat', which is pretty close and easy to remember, while 'dog' is 'chien' and is nothing like the English word? Why the difference? How did that happen?

Once you start learning another language, you come up against things you'd never heard of before even in your own language, like infinitives for example. You might remember learning something about verbs once upon a time, but were you ever taught that an infinitive is the bit of a verb that has 'to' in it, like 'to go' or 'to be'? You've been using them all your life, but didn't even know it, so now you have learnt something about English when all you were trying to do is find out that the French for 'to go' is 'aller'.

It does help, of course, to communicate with the locals on a foreign visit if you speak at least some of the language, which may save you the embarrassment of waving your arms around and holding up various fingers when shopping or ordering food. Some people actually like behaving like that and are keen to stand out from the crowd at all times, while others try to blend in to the local color and learning even a little of the language is usually appreciated, and might actually get you the food you wanted.

No-one can deny that foreign travel opens your eyes to cultures and environments you had never experienced before, as well as giving you insights into different attitudes and ways of thinking. Often this leads you to look at your own culture with new eyes too and maybe even question some of your own seemingly-fixed ideas. It's the same with language: studying the way other people communicate can be a real eye-opener and you may even come to appreciate the difficulties they have with English. It's true that travel can broaden the mind, but learning to speak a foreign language may open your mind in ways you hadn't even thought of.

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