Can you see yourself, now, strolling through the markets and bazaars of downtown Paris or Mexico City or even Berlin? Bargaining like a local and knocking the price down of everything you buy. Instead of getting ripped off because you couldn’t speak their language. 

And walking into any restaurant or café, whether up-market or just an ordinary place where the locals frequent, and chatting confidently with the waiter, rattling off the local dishes like you have lived there forever. Instead of just pointing to something and hoping you can stomach it. 

Or jumping on a local bus and heading out to a local tourist attraction and just mingling with the local people, visiting the same things they visit. Instead of just staying on the hotel organized tours.

Have you ever thought about retiring in another country 

Like somewhere in South America, where the weather is better and you can live quite comfortable on your pension. Owning a small casa in a quite village with a local housekeeper to keep it clean and tidy. Living the quite relaxed life and not having to worry too much about money. Eating with your neighbors at the cantina and shopping at the mercado for food and everything you need.  A country where life is simple and most médico are a lot cheaper. 

But has the thought of learning another language at your age kept putting you off.

What about working in another country. 

They saw the global village is getting smaller with the Internet. Now with an Internet connection you can work anywhere, so why not live and work in a different country. Even if you don’t live off the Internet having another language on your CV would definitely be a plus. And you never know the boss might just send you there. 

Walking up in the mañana to the smell of tortillas waffling in the ventana. Then jumping in an old, beaten-up taxi, swerving through narrow streets to be dropped off at some gleaming office building in the downtown area. All the time, catching up on the local news from the taxi taxista. A country, where life is so different, and yet work is not so different, but there is only one serious problem. The language.

What happens if your husband or wife lands a job in another country.  

After you arrive in your new country, what do you do? Do you stay at home and watch TV or live off the internet all day. And wonder what you are doing here. You could be out and about loving your freedom. Instead of just waiting around for your other half to come home so you have someone to talk to. 

You could be crashing out in the markets or cafes. Living life to the max. Sampling what your new home country has to offer. Buying the local handicrafts. You never know you might be able to start up your very own export company. And send all the lovely little crafts back to your home country. 

Or you could teach English. Why not! Most countries are screaming out for English teachers. To get you started on your new career try out this TEFL course. Get a certificate and you are on your way to working and living in a foreign country.

You have been learning another language for what seems like ages 

But it seems like it goes in one ear and out the other. Now you have got exams just around the corner. Your life is a mess, so what do you do. You can study all night and try and cram it all in.  Spend hours looking over your grammar books. Carry little cards, with the words on them, around and read them on the bus.

You start to wonder if it is possible to learn another language. You have heard that some people have studied for years and then, when they get to the foreign country they can’t understand or say anything. “Why.” You say to yourself “What’s the point.” Language learning is like that, you have to keep at it. There are a lot of setbacks on the road to second language fluency.

With another language under your belt a whole new world opens up. 

A world where you can talk to nearly anybody and still do what you want to do. You don’t have to find a translator just to go shopping. You are not afraid to go anywhere or do anything. You don’t have to hang out in the expat community. The whole country is yours. Not just the areas where you feel comfortable and don’t need any language skills, and that is usually a very limited area.  

How do you find where to learn another language

First you can Google it or Yahoo it and see what’s out there. Then you can Amazon it or hit the bookshops. There are a lot of different courses out there, different prices and different formats, so where do you start. One of the better courses out there in cyberspace are the Rocket Languages Home Study Language Courses. 

The first course they brought out was the famous Rocket Spanish Course, and since then Rocket Spanish has changed the way we learn languages. Rocket Spanish was starting in 2004 and is now one of the leading Interactive Spanish Courses available on the internet. Now there is Rocket German And Rocket French. If you are not into online courses try these CD-Rom language courses. Everything is on CD, just drop it into your computer and away you go, learn at your own pace.

Being Bilingual

Being bilingual will set you apart and since Spanish is the third most popular language in the world you can confidently travel to any country in Central or South America, except Brazil where they speak Portuguese. But even there a lot of people can speak Spanish. 

Even in Europe you can speak Spanish in Spain. Want about retiring to Spain or one of the many countries where they speak Spanish. Have you ever thought about that. A different environment  and if you are now living in a cold climate, the ideal choice as Spanish is spoken on or near the equator, where the sun never stop shining.

Also being bilingual can give you more job opportunities and having a second language on your CV could land you that job. What about working in a strange and exotic place, learning new customs and traditions away from the humdrum of the western world. Is this you?

Some people have said that Spanish is a relatively easy language to learn, so if you only speak English and would like to try you hand at another language Spanish would be a good choice. 

If you are not really into Spanish you could try learning German or French. I learnt French at school but it only went in one ear and out the other. So I gave up. But it does stay with you. Even now many years later when I was in Canada I could still understand some written French, I even amazed myself. 

Probably the holy grail of language learning is to learn a language a lot faster so you can start to use it. There have been many different variations on helping people learn a language faster. One of the more successful methods came out of Russia after the cold war collapsed. It was so successful that the CIA tried to keep it under wraps but it still managed to end up available to the general public. This system later became known as Accelerated Learning and it became quite popular. Now, these Rocket Language Courses actually use some techniques from Accelerated Learning and that could be why they are so effective at planting the language in your brain. 

Accelerated Learning uses music that has a beat similar to the brain wave patterns the human brain also uses. This music and learning system was popularized by the Mozart Effect after it was tested at the UCLA back in the 1980s. and you can still buy Mozart Effect CDs now. This music and learning has now spilled over to the Mind Power CDs and MP3s where you use electronic sounds to control your brain wave patterns. When you use the electronic sounds you can put yourself in a very effective learning state, the same way as the Mozart Effect and Accelerated Learning so they are all basically related.

When you are learning a language if you put yourself into a heightened learning state you should be able to learn more and retain more. Accelerated Learning proved that if you are in a heightened learning state you will learn more and that is why it is still popular nowadays because it works.

I use Accelerated Learning music every time I have to use my brain, I am using it now while I am typing away. And for a quick buzz or to try and relax, I put the earphones on and listen to the Mind Power CDs. The electronic sounds do stimulate or relax depending on what sounds you listen to and it is a good way to get a quick energy boost.  So if you are getting into learning languages, check out accelerated learning and the Mind Power CDs as they do make a difference, and that difference could help you master the language.

Language Learning is not easy because there are so many setbacks, so you can end up just putting it off and putting it off, so in the end you get nowhere. And once you have put it off it is very difficult to start up again. Your self talk keeps you off. You keep telling yourself, "You can't learn a language." It's hopeless, you are better off just giving up." And in the you believe it. Then every time you start again you get knocked down, so you give up. Procrastination is a normal human trait and now there are some quite modern ways to overcome it. There are also anti procrastination tapes as well as EFT.

Now EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique is a very powerful way to change the beliefs and experiences that keep holding you back. It is a very simple method of just tapping on certain points in your face and on your body and in a very short time you can change the beliefs that are holding you back. This also includes your beliefs about language learning so if you need something to keep you going while learning a new language try out one of the anti procrastination tapes and EFT and then you will be back on track in no time at all.

Well I think this about sums up this little talk on why you might need to learn a language, and how to keep yourself going if you get stuck or overcome by setbacks. 

Thank You

Peter Legrove