Can learning a new language (Human not programming) help your career?

Question

I was wondering if anyone had any experience of learning a new language (a human language not a programming one) and whether is has helped you get ahead in your career.

I'm assuming that the new language is one other than English which I think is fairly essential to programming as most programming resources seem to be english.

The reason I ask is I speak Arabic and was told that it would give me an edge when I was looking for jobs, and yet so far in my current job it's completely irrelevant and in my last job I had it was used but I didn't get any special "appreciation" for speaking it.

Answer 1

You've answered your own question:

"in my current job it's completely irrelevant and in my last job I had it was used but I didn't get any special "appreciation" for speaking it."

In my current role having another language doesn't help me on a daily basis - but in my immediate vicinity sit a handful of people whose first language is not English (Russian, French, Serbian, German ...) so them having another language in addition to their native tongue has certainly helped them.

Any knowledge you have gives you greater choices and more flexibility, but isn't necessarily going to be used in all situations.

I would say, "do it", but that's because my language skills are poor and I'm intensely jealous of those for whom speaking foreign tongues comes easily.

Answer 2

It is always good to learn and speak more languages in personal life. But I don't think learning other-than-english language helps a programmer, because for programmers any language is just a unicode-characters-set.

Answer 3

It can but it does depend on the language and the situation. My wife and daughter have gotten a couple of jobs because they speak Spanish. my company has hired people because of speaking French or German. For other companies it maybe other languages, or in some cases it may not matter at all.

Answer 4

A new language will give you an advantage if your company needs someone speaking that language. For example, if you have some Arabian customer (or want to sell something to an Arabic-speaking country), your Arabic knowledge will be helpful. If your company will never do that, your language knowledge is, well, wasted. Maybe some other company is looking for someone like you, and in Europe, Arabic is not the most widespread language, so use this specialist knowledge to your advantage.

Since you live in Europe, knowing more languages is always a plus, because so many different languages live so closely together, and many customers appreciate not having to talk to you in English.

Answer 5

Because of the prevalence of English in highly technical fields there isn't a huge demand for bi+ lingual people.

This is not to say that having multiple languages is useless, in fact knowing the native tongue of customers, coworkers, or a partnered development firm could help a lot if they are having difficulty understanding you.

So I would categorize it as being useful, but not appreciated by employers due to how focused the useful situations are.

Answer 6

I know 4 languages, and has it helped me as a programmer... well maybe... I've been working in many countries, and that's fun. But if you plan to stay in an English speaking country you won't really benefit unless you start taking management routes (then the extra language can mean a lot)

Answer 7

If you were going into customer service then it might be useful, but for programming not so much. About the only use I got out of my Spanish as a programmer is being able to order lunch at the Cuban restaurants nearby, and flirting with the latina ladies that worked in the building. While the latter was important, professionally it has been pretty much useless.

Answer 8

Learning a new (human) language purely for career advancement is probably doing the right thing for the wrong reason. But we all often need a motivation or excuse for doing something we would wanted to do anyway.

It may well help you indirectly, by giving you access to greater field of ideas and inputs than just those available in English and Arabic. The two that I think would be of most use in this way, based on stuff that I find in searches but can't read, are German and Russian.

Answer 9

Yes, it can definitely help, especially if you're willing to relocate. Citizens of the European union, for instance, may thus be able to find new jobs in other countries, where companies often prefer hiring people who speak the language of the country the company is in (it is certainly true in France: french companies don't always welcome people who do not speak french).

Moving to Germany (and learning German) got me a terrific job. It was well worth it!

Answer 10

Learning new language with totally different grammar is a good mind bending exercise - especially in case your brains are off-line while you are sitting in your cubicle. Try Finnish, Estonian or Hungarian.

And as mentioned before, it allows you to relocate and integrate to the new country much more easily.

Answer 11

I think the best reason to learn another language is the way that it improves your understanding of your native language.

I'm a native English speaker that learned Japanese; although I never have a chance to use Japanese at work, the differences between the languages highlighted nuances of English that still help me.

Answer 12

I am billingual (french / english ). As others wrote, it can help to expand your mind...

But IMO, it's doesn't worth it if your main goal is to promote your career (unless doing customer base job). Use your time and money to get a certification in your field. This knowledge and maybe the certification itself will give you better career opportunities.

Answer 13

Yes, it has helped in some ways. Initially learning another Romantic language, e.g. French, Spanish, Italian, can provide the help that soem common ancestry exists, e.g. the notion of gracious in English, gracias in Spanish and grazie in Italian all having a "Thankful" tone to them. There are some finer points in English that become clear when another language is added to the mix, e.g. how does word order matter or what are the tenses of a verb. Thus this helps if I catch some French, Spanish or Italian show where I may get a general idea of what is going on or what someone is talking about possibly.

I think the bigger benefits came when I studied a language with a non-Latin alphabet, in my case Russian. This presented a bit of a challenge as instead of having A-Z there are all these other letters with some being quite different between their printed and written form, along with some letters carrying multiple sounds that isn't quite the case in English I think. For example, the Russian word for "well" as in how someone is feeling can look like "xopowo" using English letters but each vowel has a slightly different sound and there is the notion of emphasis on a syllable that I hadn't noticed in English or French to the same extent.

If I had to summarize my point, it would be that there are indirect skills gained when learning that second language and some general questions that you may not have had in learning your first language come into play.