How learning a foreign language improves your writing

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By Wayne C. Hahne, Writing Intern

Writers are always looking to sharpen their craft in order to both write more proficiently and enhance their style of doing so. One lesser known, but successful method of enhancing your style and gaining more avenues professionally is learning a second language.

In the basics of learning a second language, you are forced to memorize a vast vocabulary in order to be able to form coherent sentences. Going through this process will not only add to your own but also cement the words that you use on a daily basis.

Not only will you enhance your vocabulary, but learning a different language also means learning a different language structure. Spanish sentence structure, for example, calls for changes in the verb to fit the context of the sentence.

What also comes with learning a new language is learning a new culture as well. Understanding more than one culture means that you as a writer have the ability to both understand how to communicate with a certain group and also how to help others do the same.

All of that being said, learning and understanding another language will heavily help you in pursuing professional options and avenues. In the United States, the Hispanic population makes up 17.8 percent or 57.5 million of the nation\’s population.

The possibility of attracting that population is specifically why companies are more likely to hire someone that is bilingual versus someone who is not. An ability to communicate and understand with a possible market is invaluable.

Unfortunately, in an article written in 2015, “Less than 1 percent of American adults are proficient in a foreign language that they studied in a U.S. classroom.”

That gives a solid idea of why it is important to learn a second language, not only as a writer, but also as someone wanting the most out of their work. The potential to gain a bigger following when learning a language such as Spanish or Mandarin is monumental.  So go out and start learning a second language today; I promise you will notice the benefits!

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