Learn Another Language

By Louis Bruneau

So you want to learn another language? The good news is that technology has made it easier to learn another language than ever before. The not-so-good news is that there is no miracle solution to learn another language. With the skyrocketing price of oil, it's just not as easy as it used to be to hop a private jet and spend a few months abroad while you take your time learning a new language and sipping umbrella drinks. But today there are software solutions that help you learn another language from the comfort of your home, while all but mimicking life in another country. All you need to provide are some motivation and the umbrella drink of your choice.

Why learn another language? There are a variety of reasons. It makes perfect sense that learning another language will increase your desirability in the job market or on a college application. But there are other reasons to learn another language that you may not have previously considered.

One great reason to learn another language is to get a better understanding of a different culture. More of our belief systems and ways of thinking are couched in language than is immediately obvious. As more and more academic studies suggest that a single phrase will inevitably be translated with different connotations in different languages, the reasons to learn another language become more apparent. A rough translation never gets you as close to the meaning of a phrase than the contextualized understanding achieved when you learn another language. When you learn another language and attain a better grasp of how phrases work inside that language, you gain much deeper insight into the culture.

Learning another language also offers an excellent chance to enjoy the artistic nuances of cultures other than your own. Take for example the French phrase "prendre un bain de foulle." The immediate translation - "to take a crowd bath" - doesn't necessarily mean much for the average English speaker. But consider the image of, say, a politician as he or she shakes hands and kisses babies in a crowd; the French phrase becomes immediately vivid and illustrative. You start to see the politician for all of his or her posturing and the rewards that a "crowd bath" might offer. Just try not to imagine the politician using the baby to lather his or her underarms. Some images are too much for even the bilingual mind to handle.

One of the least intuitive reasons to learn another language is to gain a better understanding of your native tongue. Not everyone has a natural proclivity for grammar and sentence structure. Instead, most people have learned to speak through a natural process and have difficulty identifying the parts of speech which they use every day. When you learn another language, you gain insight into the components of language that you may have overlooked in the past. Simply having a basis for comparison is often enough to make constructions which once seemed difficult jump right out at you.

Whatever your reason to learn another language, it's definitely worth it to check out some of the new offerings in language softwares that will help you do so through a refined process that, without leaving home, is closer to the complete immersion of traveling than was ever previously available. This new breed of language softwares seamlessly links the sights and sounds of life in another language to make the learning process seem almost as if you're spending the summer in that exotic destination of your choice. With reviewlanguage.com you will get the truth about all those language learning softwares and you will be able to get the best course that meets your needs!