Why Learn a Foreign Language?

Read this tip to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Why Learn a Foreign Language? and other Learning Languages topics.

Will learning a foreign language help my kids do better in school?

Why Learn a Foreign Language?

Studies have shown that children who learn a foreign language develop stronger academic and intellectual skills in other subject areas. For example, one researcher found that students who had taken a foreign language in high school had a significantly higher grade point average in all high school subjects as well as in freshman English courses in college. Even "dead" languages such as Latin seem to have a positive impact. Novelist John Updike attributes the overall decline in the quality of writing over the last few decades to the disappearance of Latin from the general curriculum. As he put it, "In some curious way, the study of this dead and intricate language enabled writers to write a beautiful, clear idiomatic English."

   

Comments

7/10/2007 9:52:56 AM
Viktoria said:

The operative word here is "children." If one does not start learning a foreign language in childhood, one might as well forget about it. The LAD (Language Aquisition Device) is lost at about 12 or 13, and it is absurd to try to learn any foreign language in college. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, with whom I have spoken who took four semesters of foreign language in college cannot speak it now--in fact, they admit they forgot what they did manage to learn in about 6 months. This is a ridiculous requirement in Arts and Sciences, and ought to be dropped-- (Incidentally, sp far as taking a foreign language improving one's other grades--sorry, it certainly wasn't true in my case--)




Name:


URL: (optional)


Comment:


Not finding the advice and tips you need on this Learning Languages Tip Site? Request a Tip Now!


Guru Spotlight
Tammi Reynolds