Careers with Languages

Intro

Being a keen language learner often leads family and friends to ask the question of “what will you do with that?” or “languages are useless now, everyone speaks English”. In my experience, languages are considered to be unnecessary, and a degree in languages a one-way ticket to unemployment. A lot of people narrow-mindedly think that the only need for languages is to become a teacher. This is of course not the case, and it really is surprising to see some of the doors that languages can open for you.

Journalism

The best journalists are those who are knowledgeable in one or two languages outside of their native language; not only does fluency in the language help you massively in gathering information, but the knowledge of the cultures and people of other countries is vital for understanding and portraying international news. This leads seamlessly into news presenting professions. Many of the top BBC news presenters have a degree in French, German or a foreign language with English.

Politics and International Relations

The United Nations, the centre of relations and peace between world nations, with 193 participating countries, 6 major official languages and countless other languages used, revolves around those familiar with languages and cultures across the world, and has a wide variety of professions within. The EU uses 24 official languages, and for the close trade and harmony among nations, speakers of these languages are essential.

Teacher

Perhaps the more obvious profession, teaching is a secure and fulfilling way of encouraging the learning and enjoyment of multilingualism to the next generation. It guarantees the use of foreign languages every day and can lead you to posts all over the world, in addition to the security it brings as a permanent job, we will always need teachers to teach children.

Tourism

Tourism encompasses almost everything you could think of; from pilots and cabin crews on international airlines, travel agencies, and tour guides in cities abroad to hotel staff, entertainers, travel bloggers, and photographers, the list is endless. Fluency in foreign languages is widely sought after in all of these and makes the job so much more enjoyable for yourself and the thousands of customers and holidaymakers you will meet.

Translators and Interpreters

There are things you never even stop to consider the language of, and how they became in so many languages. If you think about it, translators are everywhere: in books, both for reading and education, all of our favourite tv shows and films, and on the front lines of work, in hospitals and helping with refugee arrivals to name a few. If you think that google translate could do all that, you would be wrong; a computer simply cannot understand tone or phrases, so the hard work of people is essential.

Business

Now that businesses can provide services and ship products to almost every country, there is a demand for people to communicate in multiple languages. For Human Resources and management of business and distribution in certain areas of the world, it is so much more efficient with multilingual speakers nowadays.

Conclusion

We are seeing now, in this global pandemic, more than ever before, the absolute necessity for communication in many languages among all nations to ensure the safety and well being of everyone. Languages really are among everything we do, and many of their uses in the professional world often go unseen.