Today we live in a diverse world with diverse cultures brimming every where we go. The world has become more connected and thus multi lingual communication has gained prime importance in today’s ever growing Cosmopolitan nature of the world.

No matter wherever you go the biggest weapon you have in you is of course your tongue. You may be stranded at a foreign full of strangers but if you know the native language you can easily survive there by communicating the right information to them and finding a way back home. Thus language today is one of the biggest sources for providing a means to communicate your ideologies to the rest of the world.

Before and Now

Earlier many people used to research in languages of various nations as a hobby because they were curious to know about different dialects and speech construction techniques adopted by different nations.

But now the scenario has changed a lot as there are various courses that offer language courses which help students and researchers get information about various languages.

Knowledge of more than 1 foreign language is always an added bonus because many companies based outside India often recruit Indian students who have knowledge about the languages used in the country of working.

The prospective languages offered for study

Now students have the option for doing a research in multiple foreign languages like Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Latin, Chinese and many more to name a few. Arabic too is recently gaining a lot of attention form students pursuing courses in foreign languages.

There are many who take up Language course as a full time career courses because today there are many opportunities for this sector which will be discussed later on this article.

Where to Study

But many of these aspirants might not be aware as to where to start looking for in order to study a course for the same.

Well there are many institutes of which many are world famous, that offer Diploma courses in foreign languages like Jamia Millia and Delhi University’s language studies department.

There are also many well known institutes like Alliance Française (French) spread across the length and breadth of India that offer such Diploma courses for Foreign Languages like

Also students can enroll themselves in various Undergraduate courses in foreign languages in several reputed Universities via an Entrance test conducted by the University for the same. Some of the recognized universities offering such Undergraduate courses are JNU and EFL University in Hyderabad.

French and Spanish constitute majority of the choices made by the students. It is interesting to see that many schools in India offer French and Spanish as Second Language options in their curriculum.

Reason for popularity

Multi lingual ability is often desired by many. That is the reason why the phenomenon is on the rise in India especially.

Those who do it as a hobby often takes it at a leisure pace and they slowly but very descriptively analyze the language and study it at ease. But today many take it up as a career option because they primarily aim to go abroad and thus familiarization of the local language there will be highly favored.

Many who have completed graduation in other areas also prefer to undergo foreign language courses so that they can be assured of better opportunities in their field of specialization abroad.

Hardships you may face

But before going ahead with choosing a career option in Linguistics as mentioned above, students must bewell aware of the fact that studying a whole new language is not an easy task as it looks. Just mugging up the large text books is not enough for you to have a successful course. This is an area of study where the proverb Practice Make Perfect always has a strong stand. The more students practice the language the more they get accustomed to it.

Many institutes offering the courses have foreign exchange programmes wherein the students are given an opportunity to go abroad and have a live experience of the use of the language they have chosen. This is very useful as it is very important to understand the political and sociological demographics of the country whose language you have chosen to study. This will help in better utilization of the language and students can know exactly where to use the desired dialects and slangs.

Job Opportunities

Now let us take a look into the career prospects of such a diploma or undergraduate course.

Foreign language experts are in high demand in various sectors because globalization has led to the mixing of different cultures and people of different nations in all forms of large and small business. There is often need for translators and interpreters in various offices and corporate centers and these jobs offer good pay packages.

But foreign language experts do not have their career opportunities restricted to just mere translational services.  They have great demand in the teaching industry because as mentioned earlier today several schools and colleges offer foreign languages as second language options.

The Army and Military section too is in need of effective and skilled translators for decoding and encoding confidential messages and also for intercepting potentially dangerous code messages of enemy nations.

The Media and News section especially the print media is one place where foreign language experts have a great demand as there is need to translate news coming in from various foreign news agencies. Government Embassies world wide have requirements of skilled Language experts and so do top figures in the political world when they go to foreign nations on friendly visits and also for international conventions.

The IT industry is also in need of foreign language experts as they need to prepare large documentations and reports in other languages for their prospective clients. BPO services provided to other nation companies too require foreign language experts.

Remuneration

Foreign Language expert can expect decent remunerations starting from Rs 1000 an hour to Rs 25000 a day. Also beginners can get word based pay packages like for example 50 Paisa per word and so on.

Conclusion

Thus this area is somewhat a mixed bag. Thos who are willing to offer extra ordinary determination and passion for language study can take up this as a career option but the road to success is really rough.