The Top 5 Benefits of Being Multilingual

Hi Muriel,
To me, #4-globalization is one of the benefits at the same level as #1-3.
I personally don't agree with the text: people should feel closer together but given the wars, terrorism and bestiality that are increassing, I wouldn't say "has brought people closer together", I would use a conditional showing my wish instead of a present perfect.

As for #5, it looks futile and included in #4.

Good Evening Everyone,

After seeing Gerard's answer in another topic, I will now answer here as well.

First of all, the benefits of the picture shown are really showing something about myself.

I am French, living in England. I am fluent in French, English, and more or less in German.

When I arrived, I applied for few jobs and they are looking for a lot of people who are multilingual.

I got my first job quite quickly. Where I worked, I mostly used French.

Now, I am working somewhere else and use English and French.

To me, being multilingual helped to get a job.

About my intellect... I won't say anything, I do not want to be the judge about it, I suppose other people can do it. I do not want to seem arrogant.

I do not necessarily understand French more, but I feel like I am more able to help foreigners learning French, as I know how it is to learn another language. I taught French abroad and students were happy. So I suppose I did not do such a bad job !

Languages definitely bring people together. We can see it when we go to language cafes. The age does not matter, language ( and your personality of course ) can break barriers between people. In the street or in a simple cafe, people might not go to chat with older people.
In Calais, I had the chance to meet older people like John and Stella and even Rene. I got on with them really well and we started to chat about anything.

To travel, being multilingual is just so good. When I went to Poland, my Polish skills were not that good... But most of the people were able to speak English ( the younger ones ) or German ( the older generation ). So I was always able to get out of my problems ( if any ).
When in England, I speak English so it is much easier to communicate as not many English people speak a foreign language but Spanish...
I plan on travelling to new countries ( outside Europe ), where I do not speak the language ( not even a single word ! ). When I will be able to go, I can then really say how much it helps me to be multilingual.

Greetings to all x

Hi everyone,

Regarding "Improved Intellect", I understood it meant open-mind and exercises for seniors to prevent Alzheimer.

Re "Increased Understanding Of Language", I'd say we better understand that "En to expect" which seems far from "Fr attendre" is related to "Fr expectative" and that the French may have lost this root; I can understand that "Fr attendre" and "Sp esperar" are effectively close; I like to realize things taht are expressed by a single word "Fr pouvoir" in fact include several ideas that can use different verbs in English; we realize that French which looks so easy to natives can be in fact very tricky... foreign language cause reflections on native languages.

Muriel,

I'm responding to MarineL.

Hi Muriel, Marine, hi everyone,

Another example for "Increased Understanding Of Language".
I often say to myself that the English language has 2 different roots for French words ie 2 times the number of words in French (it's approximate) - English people are respectful and rarely get rid of words and a consequence is that the double-series gets slightly different meanings that we -foreigners- have to try to learn.
We sometimes discover that the English language kept old French words that disappeared (or rarely used) from French such as "to procrastinate".
I sometimes wonder from where En language took words for example "Fr célébrité" corresponding to "fame". I forgot my Latin studies but the English are right here: French language tends to forget that fame comes from a Latin root and that we still have this root in a few words or expressions such as "mal famé", "infamie", "fameux", etc.

Yes foreign languages help me understand my native language.

Muriel,

MurielB a écrit:... Gérard, you have written two times instead of twice. Is it American ?

Yes, Americans rather say "two times", or sometimes "twofold" (in a few states they say twice, especially in the north east I guess).