People learn foreign languages for various reasons. They want to travel, learn about a foreign culture, meet new friends. One of the most common reasons is learning a foreign language to improve career opportunities. And indeed, learning Spanish can help you get your dream job.
This article deals with a few ways learning Spanish or another foreign language can help you move ahead in your career.
Business opportunities
In the modern globalized world more and more companies become international or work with overseas partners and contractors. An employee of any level, from a receptionist to the CEO, may need to communicate with a foreign customer or potential partner. Thus, knowledge of a foreign language can help you get a good job or a promotion.
Learning Spanish in particular is a great investment in your future career. Latin America is a growing, expanding market providing amazing business and career opportunities, and knowledge of the Spanish language increases them even further.
Apart from business, Spanish, or another foreign language, can come in handy in such creative jobs as journalism, or in volunteer and charity work.
Language related careers
If you achieve an advanced level in a foreign language, a number of language-related career opportunities will be open for you. You can train to be a foreign language teacher, work as a translator or interpreter, copywriter or proofreader. Despite the fact that these markets are quite saturated, demand for highly qualified professionals is always high.
Learning Spanish gives you great opportunities in this area. Spanish language is in high demand nowadays. It will take some time to achieve advanced level, but it may prove to be one of the best investments of your time and money.
Educational opportunities
Learning a foreign language greatly expands your opportunities to get high quality education and professional training. There must be great schools and universities in your country, and important educational works are translated into many languages. However, there may be schools overseas that specialize in a particular area of knowledge, as well as worthy textbooks and articles that do not get translated. If you do not know any foreign languages, you miss out on a lot of great learning opportunities.
Networking
People and useful connections are an important resource, which may facilitate your career growth. If you are truly ambitious and do not want to limit yourself, you will probably want to establish connections with important people in your industry from all over the world. If you work in PR, knowledge of a foreign language can be your goldmine.
English is an important international language, but only about one in four people in the world speak some form of English. You may need to learn a foreign language to speak with the other three. Also, if you know even a few phrases in your potential business partners language, it usually produces a favorable impression.
To sum it all up, knowledge of a foreign language can be truly beneficial to your career. It increases your chances of getting a great job, improves your educational and networking opportunities. It also can allow you to work as a foreign language teacher or translator, and these jobs are in high demand nowadays.
Spanish is one of the most widespread languages, and knowledge of Spanish in particular increases these opportunities even further. Just make sure you attend an accredited Spanish language school or study with a highly qualified teacher, and you will be making one of the best investments in your future career.