Tom Barnett's column "Connecting dots in a complex world:"
As someone who's written books on American grand strategy post-9/11, a lot of young people send me e-mails asking which educational experiences will prepare them best for this tumultuous world. I tell them: Study any and every foreign language you can.....
Studying foreign languages obviously makes you smarter about foreign cultures, but, quite frankly, that's the least important reason for learning other tongues if you want to become a truly horizontal thinker.
What studying languages teaches you is how to master new vocabularies and the logic that underlies them. In a world with specialized lexicons for almost every profession, that's a huge skill.
Studying languages immerses you in the thought processes of others, giving you different lenses for viewing the world. It puts you in the other guy's shoes, which is crucial for out-of-the-box thinking.
Language study also boosts your skills at mimicry, which is more important than you think. If you really want to connect with skilled experts, you have to get inside their comfort zone, and one of the best ways to do that is to play the part. Languages teach you that, because to speak Russian, for example, you've got to act a bit Russian.
Finally, nothing helps you understand your own native tongue better than studying others. It'll vastly improve your speaking and writing and even your reading skills.
I've studied four foreign languages and, quite frankly, I don't speak any of them well today. But I consider the years I put in on each to have been incredibly worthwhile, generating much of the intellectual muscle that animates my work as a writer, speaker, strategist and executive.
Simply put, if you want to connect the dots across this increasingly balkanized world, you've got to be able to learn new languages on a continuous basis....
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