Hyderabad Times finds out why students are opting for foreign language degree and diploma courses

Foreign languages seems to have found favour with city students, as more and more youngsters are enrolling in diploma/degree courses in them. For some, learning a foreign language is a sureshot way of landing an interpreter’s job. For others it comes handy when they move to new jobs and degree courses in countries where English is not the primary language. Says Manasa, a second year English literature student who’s doing a German language part-time course at EFL University: “With developing and developed nations coming together in fields of science, technology, social sciences, etc, there will always be a demand for interpreters.”

   European language courses are extremely popular among college students. Frederic Dart, director of a leading foreign language institute says, “With promising prospects for business and study in Europe, many professionals and college students enroll to study French. We have about 1,800 students learning French every year of which half are professionals and the rest students.”
   Spanish is one of the favourites, as it is a primary language for over 20 countries. Madhuri who works for a software company and has been transferred to the US says, “I took up a Spanish course because I was told that the second most widely start learning foreign languages. “Learning Japanese, which has 1,945 characters, was a challenge. Learning the beautiful and intricate calligraphy is tough. I am planning to learn many more languages as I always wanted to be an ambassador to the UN,” says Surender a student at Japanese language teaching institute.
Learning a foreign language is not only a challenge to the mind but also helps divergent thinking. “We have around 700 students who learn German. We give them classes on the language and also organise cultural events. We have German singers, artists and poets who come to meet our students, helping them get introduced to the richness of the language they are learning,” says Padmavati, administrator of an institute which teaches German.

Another language that’s popular with the students in the city is Russian. Shruthi N, a student says, “I’ve joined the course since there are good openings for translators. There are also a lot of jobs that one can do from home like content writing for Russian websites.”

Small wonder then, that city students are arming themselves with degrees/diplomas in foreign languages in order to be part of a globalised multicultural society and multilingual society.
hyderabadtimes@indiatimes.com