As an employee languages are always an advantage, although English is now a days the "Lingua Franca" of our time. But except from your professional life, different languages also makes your life a lot whaler and it facilitates communication across borders, cultures and entire continents.
As a Belgian I have the privilege to be born in a country with 3 official languages, as well as living in the hart of the European Union. A melting pot of people, cultures and tongues. My mother tongue is Dutch. According to Wikipedia, worldwide only about 28 million people speak this language. On a worldpopulation of 7 billion people, that makes about 0,4% of the entire world population. Roughly one person out of an entire Airbus A300.
Conclusion: I propably can't communicate in my own mother tongue with most of the people I would meet at a random basis.
As I already introduced, I'm a Belgian. So I started learning French about my 10th and English at my 14th. Because of the small number of Dutch speakers most movies come to us in there original form. Which allows us to learn a lot of - mostly English - in a passive way.
A luxury position and a unique possibility to create added value. Something that is, besides useful in a lot of situations, also give you an advantage when looking for a job. I once applicated for a job in an international engineering consultancy firm. At the application day there were both dutch and french speaking Belgians. Although the mentality in that firm wasn't quiet what I was looking for, I heard one sentence that will always be burn in my mind: "If you want to be an international engineer(/employee/manager), you have to know at least three languages, four is a must and from five on, you can tackle the world."
We did the test, only one person out of thirty said he only knew 2 languages (French and English), all the others claimed to know 3 and a few knew 4 (mostly because of there Erasmus experience). It was one of the most profound Eye-openers I ever encountered. I realized at that point in time the importance of speaking foreign tongues, especially in an international environment.
Although your mother tongue is enough when you aspire a career in your own country or region, it isn't enough when you like to go to other countries. Learning other languages is the passport to an (international) career. Something I see on a daily basis now in Germany.
Germany is a great country, the engin of the European economy and with a mentality born for professional results. But most people know, besides german, only one or maybe at most two foreign languages. German is necessary to work here, but I see that all our managers know at least 3 languages, and have notions of even more languages. I was struck by this truth. Languages make it possible to network across borders, which is important if you want to grow further. You need it as well to communicate with your colleagues, sometimes your mother tongue is enough, but in an international context it is most likely you need an other tongue.
So more languages are indeed an added value for a career and certainly as you aspire an international career. #WDYMD
As a Belgian I have the privilege to be born in a country with 3 official languages, as well as living in the hart of the European Union. A melting pot of people, cultures and tongues. My mother tongue is Dutch. According to Wikipedia, worldwide only about 28 million people speak this language. On a worldpopulation of 7 billion people, that makes about 0,4% of the entire world population. Roughly one person out of an entire Airbus A300.
Conclusion: I propably can't communicate in my own mother tongue with most of the people I would meet at a random basis.
As I already introduced, I'm a Belgian. So I started learning French about my 10th and English at my 14th. Because of the small number of Dutch speakers most movies come to us in there original form. Which allows us to learn a lot of - mostly English - in a passive way.
A luxury position and a unique possibility to create added value. Something that is, besides useful in a lot of situations, also give you an advantage when looking for a job. I once applicated for a job in an international engineering consultancy firm. At the application day there were both dutch and french speaking Belgians. Although the mentality in that firm wasn't quiet what I was looking for, I heard one sentence that will always be burn in my mind: "If you want to be an international engineer(/employee/manager), you have to know at least three languages, four is a must and from five on, you can tackle the world."
We did the test, only one person out of thirty said he only knew 2 languages (French and English), all the others claimed to know 3 and a few knew 4 (mostly because of there Erasmus experience). It was one of the most profound Eye-openers I ever encountered. I realized at that point in time the importance of speaking foreign tongues, especially in an international environment.
Although your mother tongue is enough when you aspire a career in your own country or region, it isn't enough when you like to go to other countries. Learning other languages is the passport to an (international) career. Something I see on a daily basis now in Germany.
Germany is a great country, the engin of the European economy and with a mentality born for professional results. But most people know, besides german, only one or maybe at most two foreign languages. German is necessary to work here, but I see that all our managers know at least 3 languages, and have notions of even more languages. I was struck by this truth. Languages make it possible to network across borders, which is important if you want to grow further. You need it as well to communicate with your colleagues, sometimes your mother tongue is enough, but in an international context it is most likely you need an other tongue.
So more languages are indeed an added value for a career and certainly as you aspire an international career. #WDYMD
