Ideas for Lockdown – Blog 3: Learning a new Language

Learning a new Language is something that we all try and do at some point in our lives and is something we should all try and do more of in our day to day life. Learning a new language brings with it lots of different positives in our life which we will be looking at in today’s blog in the Ideas for Lockdown series!

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is the third blog in the Ideas for Lockdown series and is all about Learning a new Language! Learning new languages is something that I love to try and do and is something that we could all do more of in our lives! As a lot of people have more time on their hands due to the Lockdown that we are facing, why don’t we use the time to try and start to learn a new language?

There are around 6,500 spoken languages around the world. There are so many languages to choose from so the question that I have is what’s stopping you? Is there a language that you have always wanted to learn but have never had the time too? Then now is your chance! Make the most of the extra time that we have and try and learn that language, you never know it could change your life!

One of my favourite things about learning languages is that you can spend as little or as much time doing it as you choose. You can spend hours a day looking at different words, verbs and tenses or you could just spend the odd five minutes here and there learning some new phrases, it is completely up to you!

Learning a new language gives you the chance to communicate with people around the world. If you know French, for instance, then you can communicate with people from France, Belgium, Cameroon and even Canada! It opens the door to a potential global network of people that you can speak and interact with!

Learning more languages can also help you out greatly in advancing your career. Companies are now actively seeking out multilingual people and are adding things like, must speak to or more languages, to job descriptions. Learning a new language can not only open your door to a much larger network of people but can also provide a lot of different jobs all around the world!

In regards to what language you should learn, it is completely up to you! Quite a lot of people that I know look at the most employable languages or the most spoken languages around the world and then try and learn them but the choice is all yours!I find that when I have been to a country and seen people speak their native language, it makes me want to learn it!

Growing up I had the chance to speak English, Welsh, French and German. While I ultimately did not choose German as a GCSE option I still had the chance to learn the basics and really enjoyed it! By the end of my time in school, I could speak a lot of Welsh and carried on with learning French. By the end of College I had a great understanding of the French language and it led to me making some great friends in France!

As I mentioned previously the speed that you learn a language is completely up to you. You could try and learn it all as fast as you can or you could take it nice and slow. Even spending the odd five minutes here and there learning a few rods does make a little bit of a different when learning a new language.

There is tonnes of help out there if you are stuck learning a language too. Websites like Duolingo, https://www.duolingo.com/, and Language Helpers, https://www.languagehelpers.com/, are made to help you learn new languages and are there to support you along the way! If you make the most of them then they will be sure to help you out!

Learning a new language can also help us to start to understand the culture behind different countries and the traditions and beliefs that different countries have. It can be a great way to broaden your horizons of the world and to really see how different people live and what they do in their day to day lives!

That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog! What do you all think? Is there a language that you have always wanted to learn? Are you going to try and learn it now? What are you doing in Lockdown? Is there any specific content that you would like to see me do for the page? Let me know in the comments below or through out Facebook page and I will see if I can make it happen!

Thanks for reading and i hope you have a great day!

James Sweeney