Learning more than one language in your lifetime is very important for you to develop skills and relationships. As a speaker of a foreign language, I can truthfully say that knowing more than one language gave me many opportunities. Here is why more students should learn foreign languages, particularly American Sign Language.

As soon as you learn a second language, your brain gets wired a certain way that makes it easier for you to keep learning more and more languages. In many European countries, by the time kids graduate high school an increasing number of teenagers know at least 3 different languages, and sadly that isn’t true for America. Our nation is growing in diversity, and because of this, different languages from around the world could be closer to you than you think.

Not only is learning a foreign language crucial for our development, it is important that kids today learn American Sign Language. Learning American Sign Language is very important because many people in the U.S. are deaf and while growing old, lose their hearing. As you travel around the world, or even on the same continent to a different country, it would be foolish to think that everyone speaks the same language as you, pulling out google translate every time you have a question won’t save you any time if you’re in a rush. As the population grows, the number of speakers of every language will increase. It would be sad to see someone restricted to one language. It is proven that it is much easier for children to learn foreign languages because their brain is not yet developed fully so they take in information more easily, but as adults it’s not as easy to retain the information. Many languages are similar based off where they come from, for example, Spanish, Italian, and French are all Romance languages based off Latin. As an Italian speaker, it is easier for me to learn Spanish words because they are sort of similar based off their Latin roots.

It is not too late to learn a foreign language if you just work hard enough at it.