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Intelligence, career opportunities, exposure to other cultures: all reasons to learn another language.

But how much does learning another language actually help? Perhaps more than one may think

“I grew up in Ukraine so my first language is Ukrainian,” said fluent  Russian, Ukrainian, and English speaker Sergiy Dovgopol, “When I moved to America, my family and I lived in Philadelphia  for about seven or eight years. Northeast Philly has a large Russian community and Russian is a very similar language to Ukrainian so I was easily able to pick it up. Knowing these languages helps me talk to relatives and will help my future when I apply for a career.”

Dvogopol said there are both personal and profession benefits..

“Knowing these languages helps me talk to relatives,” he said, “and will help my future when I apply for a career.”

Senior Johnathan Riad, originally from Italy, agreed.

“There are many benefits that I have already discovered. I can speak Italian, Arabic, English, French, and Latin,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to find a job and it’s an extremely important resource for college. I travel a lot and I have found that with every person I talk to, they have lots of interest in me because of how well I can speak their language. People are always asking me to say different things in different languages for fun.

According to Riad, practice makes perfect.

“Learning a language is easier with practice. It helps if you practice the new language in the country where it is most spoken. Out of the five languages I know, Latin has definitely been the hardest to learn,” he said.

While moving to a country to learn a new language may not be a realistic possibility for many, it certainly helps, as senior Joseph Salvo learned.

“It was hard at first moving to America from Italy,” Salvo said. “But after just a year and a half, I have been able to really grasp the language and speak it well. I would have never gotten the same result if I were to learn English from another country.”

Some students are bilingual because they were raised in a household full of speakers of another language while living in an English-speaking countr.

“My house only spoke Spanish,” said sophomore Ricardo Arvizu,”so learning English was a pain. It is such a complicated language, and it took me years to learn fully. Now that I do know both languages fluently I see all the benefits that come with it. For example, now when I apply for a job they will most likely pick me over the other guy because I can communicate in two separate languages. Sure, learning the language was hard but it was worth it.”

World language teachers, such as Spanish teacher Ms. Itziar Otegui, have known about the benefits for years and have dedicated their lives to promoting this idea.

“There are so many benefits from learning another language like Spanish,” she said. “Not only is it beneficial for applying for a job, but also for learning about different cultures.”

For students enrolled in a language class (who may never travel to a country where the language is spoke) is one period a day, five days a week, 180 days out of the year truly enough time to learn new language?

It is definitely possible,” Otegui said. “It all depends on the interest level of the student. If they want to learn, then they will study and be successful. With the curriculum they are given, if they put forth the effort, they will accomplish their goal of learning a new language like Spanish.”