Last updated on 09 July, 2021

Importance of Learning Different Languages in Childhood Development: A Complete Guide

There is a regular shift in how we are living! This world is ever-changing.

Witnessing continuous change, is it natural to think about what will happen next? What does the future look like? What will happen in the future? etc.

Agree?

Indeed, it is true for everything all around. No matter how we act, learn, participate and communicate. Our world possesses many languages.

But many think that in ten years or so, the face of world languages will be different. With technological progress and globalization, the world has shrunk.

Diverse cultures, nationalities, and languages have been intertwined. With the rise of collective business and globalization operations, people began to communicate in a common language. Arabic, French, German, Chinese, Portuguese, etc. are some of those languages that have dominated the world for a long time.

1. How language development is an important part of child development?

Developing language at an early stage helps the children to grow and improves their ability to communicate. Also, it supports the child to:

Formulate and understand feelings
Think and acquire
Resolve problems
Build and sustain relationships.

Understanding to learn, leverage, and experience language is the primary step in literacy and the fundamentals of reading and writing.

2. What makes language helpful for learning?

Number Of Speakers

Unsurprisingly, before you make up your mind to learn a language, it is very important to understand how many people speak a language. Many choose the language with the most learners. You must also contemplate how many people use the language as a second language. With this data, you can become confident in speaking and open doors for global interaction.

Geographic Region

Here, exactly the interests and goals are acknowledged. Are you planning to travel for some time in a particular area? If that is the case, then, please check which languages are usually used there.

If you want to learn a language that is widely spoken around the world, you may need to choose English, French, or Spanish spoken on all continents.

Usability and Versatility

While choosing a language, you may need to consider versatility. Can this language be used mainly abroad and at home?

What about in the social and business environment? Ask yourself, “To what extent would I use this language?” Learning a language requires time and energy, and you will want to learn the language that suits you best!

Career Opportunities

Think about your current or future field, and where your business is located. If you work in the United States, Spanish is considered a favorable language for learning.

If you want your industry or company to engage in a large amount of international business, then, learn a language that is specialized in your field. It can be Japanese, Chinese, German, or Italian.

3. Language Development in School Years

The time when children start school (approximately 6 years of age) is considered important to their cognitive development.

In this period, school teaching awakened knowledge of language components at every level of analysis: lexical, phonological, semantic, pragmatic, and grammatical. The growth of this kind of knowledge is closely related to cognitive evolution and to the progress to a particular stage of development.

The introduction of the formal teaching world supplements and changes the language input that children are exposed to, so the drive for language reflection allows the growth of meta-language understanding.

Near the age of 6, the children’s language skills have already developed very well. They have a fundamental vocabulary of approximately 3,000 words, almost have full phonological production ability (that is, they can provide all phonemes and phoneme combinations of their mother tongue), and can perfectly use the basic grammar.

From 6 to adolescence (approximately 12 years of age), approaches for creating and combining information emerged, as did the use of new sentences (the complexity of language grammar).

Lexicon remains to add enhancements that are significantly related to higher education levels. It is also found that the awareness of metalanguage is gradually increasing, partly due to the development of reading skills.

4. How to promote early childhood language development

The most reliable way to support your child’s language development is to talk about things that interest them frequently. This all is to follow your child’s lead because they explain to you what they are interested in by babbling, waving, or using language.

Communicating with your child

From birth, communicate with your child and handle them as talkers. All you have to do is to use various words in various contexts.

For instance; you can communicate to your child about an orange ball and how to cut an orange. This helps your child understand the meaning of words and how they work. When you are finished, pause and let your child respond.

You can react to your child’s efforts to communicate when your child begins to grunt, coo, point, and wave. Like; if your baby makes cooing and purring sounds, you can coo to them. Or, if your child points to a toy, it’s as if your child is saying: “Can I hold that?” For instance, you can ask “Do you need blocks?”

When the child begins to use words, you can repeat and create what the child said. Like; if the child states, “Apple”, you can ask, “Do you need a red apple?”

This is also true when your child begins to make sentences. You can acknowledge and promote your children to extend their sentences.

For example, your child might say “I go shopping”. You might answer, “What did you do in the store?”

When you are careful and revert to your children according to these methods, it will encourage them to proceed to communicate and improve their language skills.

Reading with your child

Reading and sharing books on various topics enables your child to hear words in different ways. Linking the content of the book to what happened in the child’s life is a better way to let your child talk.

As in, you can say, “we will go to the playground today, exactly as the boy in this book. What do you want to do on the playground? You can even help your children to talk by reading interesting pictures in the book with them.

When you read loudly with the child, you can point towards the way you speak. It implies to your child the connection between written and spoken words and encourages them to understand that words are different parts of the language. These are all important ideas for improving literacy skills.

5. Top 12 Languages Of Future

Mandarin Chinese

Of course, there are more than 1 billion Chinese speakers in the globe, and it is at the top of the list of the most influential learning languages. However, most users are in China, hence, is it an important language to understand? Yes, Indeed, it is!

As China has emerged as a global power, it has become essential to own team members and Chinese tutors who understand Chinese.

German

Germany is the universally spoken language in all of Europe because it is still the most important economy in Europe. Therefore, if you are doing business in Europe or planning to do so, German is an important language to learn.

This is an interesting language to learn, with endings attached to words to give them a particular meaning. However, it is also a very simple language to read and write.

Spanish

Spanish constitutes a greater number of native speakers and a considerable amount of overall speakers also.

Many Spanish-speaking countries are established in Central and South America which have been remarkably popular tourist destinations in recent years. That is why you can get acquainted with many who understand Spanish.

Moreover, since there are a great number of Spanish speakers in Singapore, if you reside, travel, or work in the United States, Spanish is the first choice for learning!

French

French, also known as the language of love, has been the language of international diplomacy for ages. Historically, English has only recently become a diplomatic language with the rise of the United States as a global power and with the increased percentage of french tutors online. There are several English tutors who support the children to learn the language perfectly.

France is yet an economic powerhouse and a famous tourist destination, hence French is a language worth learning!

Russian

Russian is a very important language in several Eastern European and Eurasian countries. Also, Russian has the second-highest rate of Internet content (after English), and it ranks among the highest percentages of Internet content in Europe. All this makes Russian one of the most well-known languages that European companies need to learn.

Arabic

Arabic was originally a nomadic language, used among mobile tribes. Now, it is the standard language of the Arab League, composed of 22 countries including Jordan, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, and Morocco.

These famous tourist destinations make learning Arabic worthwhile. Not only that, but it is also the language of the whole Muslim civilization and every text. There are more than 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, no wonder the Arabs are on the list.

Portuguese

Portuguese is used all over the globe -it is the standard language of countries in South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

If this is not enough to confirm that this language is one of the most powerful, then you should know that Brazil is rising as one of the globe’s newest economic powers.

Certainly, the tourism there is also rising and the global businesses are opening stores, therefore demand for Portuguese speakers are also increasing.

Also, this is an exceptional introduction to different Asian languages. There are few Chinese characters in Japanese, and the grammar is similar to Korean. Learning Japanese will make you on the road to learning these three characters.

Hindi

Hindi is the most spoken language in the world, and it is undoubtedly one of the most famous learning languages.

Although there are additional languages, it is not only the number of speakers that attracts you to learn this language, but also the global influence of the language source. India is an important part of the world economy these days. Because Hindi is the most expressed language in India, it is worth learning.

Japanese

Although Japanese is not widely spoken outside of Japan, it is, however, an important language to understand.

It does not matter if you like the food, technology, culture, or wish to travel to Japan, then, learning Japanese lets you stay ahead in several ways.

Italian

Italian might not have the greatest speakers on this list, it does not imply it is not a great language to acquire. Italy is immersed in culture, arts, and history.

There are various heritage sites in Italy and several historical texts are inscribed in Italian. It is a famous travel destination and of course, knowing Italian will direct you on the trip.

Korean

Korean is fun to learn because its characters are phonetic: when you make a sound, its shape is similar to the shape of your mouth. It is a different writing system that converts the language to be easy to understand.

English

Definitely, English is also on the list of the most important languages to learn in 2021 and beyond. It is used in global travel, global commerce, computer technology, and foreign affairs.

Not just this, though several world’s top economies are English-speaking economies—the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

English holds a large number of second-language speakers; with a large percentage of non-native English speakers around the globe.

6. Concluding Remarks

Language development helps several aspects of development, such as the development of social, cognitive, and literacy skills. It begins with gestures and sounds, then words and sentences. You can encourage language development by communicating with your child more and responding when the child reacts.

However, learning different languages supports the learners in many ways- resolving problems, understanding others’ sentiments, sustaining relationships, etc. If you are on this page, then, definitely, you are looking for essential languages to learn in 2021. Every mentioned language holds the capacity to be one of the popular languages of the future.

Only time will tell which of these languages will rule. With this list in your hand, which one would you like to choose?

Share your thoughts with us. Comment below if you have any queries. Thanks for reading!