What benefit that accrues to you as a speaker of multiple languages do you most appreciate?

Answer 1

There is no real benefit, but when I speak French to the ladies, I get a positive response enough that I got married and and divorced...I'll stick to English.

Answer 2

Learning a different language and learning how to use it is a lot of fun for me. It's sort of a mental exercise because you really have to adjust your brain to understand the way communication works in a different language. And of course, this isn't just that you're using different words, but you have to express your ideas differently in different languages. This is why literal translations of ideas between languages usually don't work. When you learn these differences, it forces you to think a little bit more about exactly what it is you're trying to express. A very ready example is that the use of the subjunctive is much heavier in many languages than it is in English. If English is your first language and you begin to learn Spanish, you really don't get what the subjunctive is for until you train your mind to think more carefully about the idea that you want your words to convey, no matter how much your poor Spanish teacher tries to help.

Because all of this forces a heightened awareness of how you use whichever language you choose, you begin to understand even your own language better. For example, I had no idea what exactly a preposition was until I learned them in a Spanish class in high school (there might be other factors that contributed to that, however, like the Texas public education system :) ). So, that new awareness of how we communicate ideas is definitely a benefit.

Another personal benefit that I got, which is related to the fact that knowing more than one language helps you understand your first language better, is that it helped my GRE verbal score. When I saw words on the test in English that I wasn't familiar with, I could often pick out the root if it was from Latin and guess the meaning with at least a little more certainty.

Also, I can't say enough about the new cultural experiences that you can enjoy when you speak more than one language. There's definitely a selection issue, at least, because one is probably more likely to visit a place or take an interest in a culture that uses a language they speak. But further than that, there's an element of cultural experience that you can't feel without understanding the language in which the experience takes place. For example, I love Spain. I'm practically obsessed with it's culture, it's people, it's music, it's wine, it's football players :), etc. Without speaking or at least understanding Spanish, I might be able to enjoy these things, but I definitely couldn't appreciate them in the way that I can because I understand the language. It's a huge part of any culture. I'm not yet fluent in Spanish, but I'm very proficient, and as I become more proficient, I continually find new facets of the culture that were behind closed doors to me just the week before.

So, I guess all of that doesn't really provide an actual answer to the question...but I don't want to have written it in vain, so I'm posting it anyway :) . To answer the question more directly, the heightened awareness of how I communicate is probably the benefit that I appreciate the most.

Answer 3

I enjoy connecting to people of different cultures. On the bus today, I saw an elderly woman I suspected was Ukrainian, and I greeted her in Polish. She was actually Moldavian. She seemed to enjoy it very much. I remember how wonderful I felt hearing Polish again, when I started studying it. It reminded me of my grandmother. If I can feel homesick for Polish which is not my first language, I can't imagine what it must be like for someone to emigrate to a foreign country where everything is so strange, and it is difficult to communicate.

Humans are the same species, yet each culture has its own unique set of values implicit in its culture. I value the flexibility of entering another reference frame.

I also am surprised by how I say sentences in English without needing all the cases of Polish. I am totally unaware of the role of many of my nouns, and yet on some level I must know, because other people understand me, so I am communicating the same information without being aware of it. A foreign language makes this explicit.

Answer 4

As a teacher, when the kids aren't listening to me (which is most of the time) I like to speak in either Spanish or Dutch, just kind of rambling on, and I can get their attention back. They even start to understand the words, such as sit down, shut up, open your book.........and so on. Being able to speak other languages gives them an opening to, "hey, maybe I can learn another language too, or at least learn this subject so that she doesn't speak crazy again."

Answer 5

As a woman, I love to catch men making comments about me in other languages and then letting on that I understand what they are saying. I speak 4 languages so I have allot of fun listening to people talk about me when they don't know I'm listening. Works great with international employees in the hotel business.

Answer 6

I agree with everything said above. I speak German, and am learning several others. I've been able to teach myself Russian, Greek, Latin, Italian, and am studying Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Dutch. Why? Just because. I also learn about other cultures through their languages, and can see how they view life in their own perspective, instead of only through mine. It's amazing how much I learn about other people's influence on the languages spoken today. For example, I've noticed a lot of Greek influence in modern Spanish and Russian. French is a mix of several root languages. I believe all of us have been beneficiaries of the cultural traditions absorbed into our own language from the various mix of ancestry from which we are all descended.

Answer 7

I agree with the other guys and gals, but for me : understanding someones language helps a lot to appreciate his/her culture, I make lots of money in global marketing. It seems that I can never shut up in 8 languages.

Answer 8

There are 3 that I most admire and seen myself. One, it is proven to develop better cognitive strengths since brain becomes exposed to grammatical constructs and comprehension complexities associated with each language. Second, it provides you better access to people, allows better acceptance if you speak their language and you can understand them better. Third, surely you have access to larger literature treasure across the globe without having to have them translated which might make the original form lost.

In general I have seen that people who speak multiple languages are more successful and capable in their people handling and other people oriented engagements

Answer 9

The enhanced appreciation and understanding of what makes my first language tick due to learning the way my 2nd, 3rd and 4th languages work. Or, in other words, the access to metalanguage that learning foreign languages gives me.

Answer 10

I love being able to speak french, portugese, italian, and nigerian because alot of my friends come from one of those backgrounds. When I first met some of them, it was interesting to see what happened when they found out I understood every word they said about me, good or bad. And it's very difficult for people to insult you. Oh and I just love when they do, because I reply in the language, "Now was that nice? What did I do to you??" lol