People choose to learn foreign languages for many reasons – for work, for travel, for study, for love or for fun.

There are no wrong reasons and sometimes knowing a foreign language can just come in handy when you least expect it…

Whilst living in Japan I travelled to South Korea with two of my Australian friends.

We were all quite young at the time (many years ago) and throughout our trip had been mistaken as Americans because of the presence of the US base in Korea.  It was quite common to see Americans walking the streets of the capital Seoul.

Following a fantastic meal at an Indian restaurant we hopped into the elevator and found ourselves surrounded by Japanese men who once again mistook us for Americans, and who definitely had no clue that we could speak Japanese.

We listened to them talk about us for what seemed like a very long elevator ride and when the doors finally opened to let us out we turned to them and in Japanese told them that they should be careful what they say as you just never know who may understand you!

The look on their faces was priceless and I like to think they will never do anything like that again!

When you think about all of the reasons why you should study a foreign language, being able to communicate with loved ones has to be number one on the list.

Consider this short story about dear friends of mine.

They met and lived in Japan. She is Japanese and he is Swiss-German but to understand each other they speak their common language – English.  Well, actually, it is a bit of a blend of all of those languages put together.

They married and had children in Japan but he had to travel overseas a lot for his work. During this time my friend spoke to her children in Japanese but her husband was not home enough to teach the children his native European language.

Years went by and each time he returned home from a work trip to see his family, the language gap seemed larger and larger. It came to the point that his wife had to act as the translator between him and his children as they did not know enough of each other’s language to communicate clearly.

The last straw came when my friend was absent from the house for a while and her husband was home with the kids but could not understand enough Japanese to know what they were saying.

That is when they decided to move to Australia where everyone would learn and speak English to each other. The plan has worked and they are a happy multicultural family blessed with many languages!  Their decisions may have been different if he had learnt Japanese but I am happy to have them here!