Tuesday, 5 March 2013

Foreign language as a career option - Lawrence High School


While a plethora of new, diverse, interesting and off-beaten tracks as careers have cropped in the last few years, there is still some ambiguity and uncertainty regarding the feasibility of these options in the minds of students. One such track is the foreign language sector. This sector is seeing a steady rise in demand for language professionals in the last few years.

While French and German are touted to be the most popular choices, Spanish, Japanese, Madrid, Italian, Portuguese and even Dutch are scoring high on the popularity charts these days.  There are reputed and internationally recognized institutes offering a basic and advanced level courses for each of these languages. For example, Max Mueller Bhavan affiliated to the Goethe Institute is synonymous with learning German and The JLPT is a certified test offered in many places within India to evaluate the proficiency in Japanese language.

So, if you have a knack of picking up new languages and also love interacting with people from diverse cultures, learning a foreign language can prove to be a very lucrative and interesting career option.  You can opt to learn just the basics of the language to complement your professional degree to gain that extra edge during an onsite opportunity or spread your wings wider to learn the depths of the language and work as a translator or even interpreter depending upon your choice.

An interpreter needs to be open to travelling within and outside the country as the job involves a lot of people interaction, sometimes even with top-notch individuals. One needs to be very fluent in speaking the language and also have good listening skills. A translator on the other hand needs to have a good command on the target and source language while also having an insight into the culture of the foreign land.

Learning a foreign language can throw up the exciting opportunity to visit other countries, understand the culture, observe the people of a foreign land and expand your knowledge and thinking.

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