Sitting down at the dinner table, pressured by the bodies surrounding you and the fear of messing up, while reading and translating important papers for your parents is an unforgettable experience. Growing up in a household with more than one language might have been confusing as a kid, but growing up, the benefits of being bilingual start revealing themselves.
There are many advantages from speaking a language other than English. Bilingualism provides more opportunities in school, work, to socialize and it even has health benefits too. Being bilingual makes people better at multitasking since they quickly transition from one language to another. Research has even shown it can help prevent brain disorders like dementia and symptoms of Alzheimers. However, people who grew up speaking another language and put in significant effort to learn English often get self- conscious about their accent.
LHS French teacher Martina Sangy comments, “The key is to remember people with accents have different cultural experiences, so the key is to embrace and actually wear your accent as a badge of honor. Who knows, it just might end up taking you to places in life and your career that you would never have dreamt of going.”
Importantly, people who speak more than one language do twice the work of switching between them effortlessly. This skill is extremely useful in the work environment. Especially in retail, which relies on customer service; and in many cases, customers might feel more comfortable communicating in a language other than English. That said, it is important for companies to be diverse to succeed more. Which is why they try to hire bilingual or multilingual employees. As said before, bilingualism requires double the work, so bilingual employees get higher salaries.
The article Why It Pays to be Bilingual by Gosia Jaros-White reports, “In the increasingly globalized and interconnected world, being able to communicate in more than one language is a highly marketable skill that often commands a higher salary. In fact, research shows that those who are bilingual or multilingual can earn 5%-20% more per hour than those who are not.”
Being bilingual benefits a person for a lifetime, the challenges of learning that new language all pay off in the end. If one was not taught a foreign language as a kid, it might be more difficult to learn once they get older since one gets so used to the language they already speak. However, it is never too late to learn, and all schools provide foreign language classes. Like jobs, colleges take interest in students who show a variety of skills, including bilingualism, which is why at least two years of a foreign language is required to get in. Liberty High school provides Spanish and French classes for all four years.
Mrs. Sangy recommends taking another language class, as she points out, “Students should take another language class if they have a passion to learn about other cultures and countries.”
Importantly, being bilingual helps bring people together. Language is an important part of people’s culture, and it expresses part of their identity to the public. Bilingualism builds up communication skills, since one can easily connect and communicate with another person in their shared language.
Yoselin Melgoza, a sophomore at Liberty explains, “You can express yourself more thoroughly because you have double the languages you can use.”
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Cover photo taken by Keisy Reyes
Keisy Reyes is a staff writer for The Lion's Roar. You can learn more about the writer by clicking here.
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