Has social media had an impact on our ability and desire to learn a new language?
Social media has been the phenomenon of the last decade or so and has risen on a nearly constantly upwards trajectory. We’ve now reached a point in civilisation where everyone’s grandmother, dog and little brother uses Facebook on a day to day basis to stay in touch, keep an eye on the world and just pass the time. However, can the social media site be attributed with impacting on our ability and desire to learn a new language?
The first and most obvious reasons that we would suggest that social media sites encourage us to learn a new language is quite an obvious one – interconnectivity. Social media allows us to connect with over a billion people on the planet – the vast majority of whom won’t speak the same language as you will. This means that you have access directly to millions of people who may not speak the same language as you.
It allows you to keep in touch with people you met on holiday, foreign people you chatted to in your home town and a whole lot otherwise. Befriend these people on Facebook and they’ll likely speak their own language most of the time. Owing to the curiosity of human nature – we’re sure that there are plenty of people who would be more than happy to learn a language just for the sake of snooping.
They say the best way to learn language is to interact with someone else that speaks the language and social media completely removes those barriers. It allows people the chance to chat to native speakers when they wish online and do so by written means. There are few ways better to learn a language than to read and write it like this and social media encourages this immensely. It’s the modern equivalent of a pen pal, only immediate. The instant translation feature also means that you can simply and quite accurately check what’s been said on the Facebook post – which can be a great aid if you want to learn the language. Why not take a look for a teacher with Lingos.
Social media allows us to see everything our friends do – whether that’s go on a night out or go on holidays. With so much emphasis on sharing of such experiences, it’s only natural to take an interest in the latest place your friend has been or someone you know is going to. This may push a person towards wanting to learn a language and also leave them aspiring to travel to that part of the world. Social media can be the trigger that encourages people to want to have such experiences and go about finding a language teacher.
Social media is a significant benefit for people hoping to learn language in London and take an interest in a new culture on a whole range of levels. Needless to say traditional means such as language tutors are a great help too and should be overlooked.