“Russian trade has increased all over the world; it helps if a person can speak Russian,” says the Institute of Russian Language’s Rita Bhalla in New Delhi. “Knowing any language is a treasure and a useful additive to your repertoire.”

With the increased global onset of companies, knowing a foreign language offers better job prospects to its learner. Employers prefer candidates who can deal efficiently with the international clients and also relate with company’s home office. Linguists can work in government, or the fields of finance, scientific research, travel, and, education.

Learning another language keeps one’s mind healthy. Studies by Scotland’s University of Edinburgh suggest that knowing a second language delays the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia by nearly five years.

Another reason for learning a new language is that it opens window to a new culture. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said “if we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.”

Further, studying abroad is an important decision, and knowing another language can help - just for starters with the verbal scores in the SAT test - if you're planning to go study in the U.S. Universities such as Harvard and Stanford require three to four years of foreign language education for a student to be considered for admission.  

If you’re planning to learn an additional language out of school, it is important to choose an authorized institute at which to study.

Private institutes such as the Alliance Française and The Institute of Russian Language provide certified foreign language courses to students across India.    

Delhi University (DU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), offer foreign language courses and merit based scholarships to language students. St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, offers a part-time certificate, diploma, and advanced diploma courses in French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and Sanskrit to DU students and the general public. 

JNU also has student exchange programs with other universities and language students have the option of studying at a university abroad for a part of their course. 
 
Top Language to Learn?

According to a survey by Ethnologue, a linguistic statistics reference, in 2013, Mandarin topped the list of the 10 most spoken languages followed by Spanish and English. 12.44% of world’s population speaks Mandarin-Chinese.   

“I learnt French since it’s easy to learn and one of the widely spoken languages in the world,” says foreign language student Megha Kalra. “It acts as a good base to learn other languages like Spanish and Italian.”

The British Council’s ‘Languages for the Future’ report for 2013 identified Spanish, Arabic, French, Mandarin Chinese, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Turkish and Japanese as the languages most likely to become important to the U.K. over the next 20 years. The choice was based on cultural, educational, economic and geopolitical aspects along with the UK’s overseas trade targets, diplomatic and security priorities.

So there are numerous arguments for learning another language – and who knows the adventures that could take you on!