Languages Can Help Graduates through Employment Slump
 
If you’ve been following the news about the economic pains in Europe, you have no doubt heard of the debilitating struggle of the recently-graduated sector. There is a generation of well-educated, highly marketable people who simply can not find a position that suits their fields of study, and don’t expect to soon.
What can grads do to sweeten the pot for potential employers? Learn a new language. Here, Daisy Atkinson, a recent graduate who felt these pains all too well, shares her story and how language can change the job-seeking game for the better.
 

by Daisy Atkinson

A major problem facing graduates today is that they are coming out of university straight into a crisis they…  read more

So many of us who learn another language do so not because we specifically want to advance our careers, rather, we possess and insatiable urge to travel and speak the language of the places we visit. Many times when we hit the road we rely on travel and tourism professionals to do the heavy work for us while we practice saying our ‘pleases’ and ‘thank you’s’. Here, I spoke with Petulia Melideo of Context Travel and asked her about the complexities of doing business in multiple countries that speak as many languages.

How does language come into play when doing business for Context?

At Context we help travelers discover new cities with local experts. I am Italian and am very proud…  read more

From his time in the Peace Corps to working as an international aid worker, Scott Webb, Program Officer with the Food Security unit of the IRD (International Relief & Development), has learned and used many languages in his work. Here, Scott tells us where, how, and why he learned his languages and shares some good advice for anyone speaking French in former French colonies.

By Scott Webb

“Du pain, s’il vouz plait,” I said.

“Du quoi?” the waitress replied.

“Du pain,” I repeated.  She raised her chin and stared at me, shrugging her shoulders slightly before looking around for something else to do.

“Quoi?” she said again.  This went on for another three rounds before I pointed to some bread that another customer was eating…  read more

One of my duties as Editor of this blog is to find and share resources with our language-learning community; from time to time I find a gem. Last month I spoke with Deanna Lyles and her husband and business partner Ìñigo Gil who started Bilingual Readers, a Madrid-based publishing company specializing in Spanish/English books for bilingual children and adults.

Why did you start Bilingual Readers?
Íñigo and I started Bilingual Readers three years ago to combine our love of books with our love of languages. As a bicultural (American/Spanish) couple living in Spain, we wanted to create books, which reflected both our languages and backgrounds. Since then we’ve published a series of high quality, bilingual (Spanish/English) books for children…  read more

The goal of our ‘Language in the Workplace’ series is not just to share stories from people who practice their languages in their respective workplaces, but to illustrate to our community where and how you can apply what you’ve learned and perhaps find meaningful work or even a successful career using your multiple languages. In this post, Gio Donatelli of the Virginia Institute of Interpreting, outlines what it takes to be an interpreter.

by Gio Donatelli

Imagine that your doctor walks into your hospital room, looks at a clipboard, furrows his brow, looks at you and starts talking. But you have no idea what he’s saying.  Or, perhaps you are calling your bank because you see an error in your account…  read more

Guest Post: Daniel Owen – Recruitment Consultant for Euro London Appointments, Multilingual Recruitment Specialists. Daniel has written for us twice before (links below) and has a unique perspective to offer our readers in regard to what employers are looking for when it comes to bi- or multilingualism in the workplace and in the job market.

By Daniel Owen

Working at Euro London Appointments, Europe’s largest independent multilingual recruitment consultancy, new jobs come in daily for us to recruit for. These jobs are far ranging across many different sectors and at many levels of the pay scale but the one constant that they do have is that they all require the knowledge of at least one other language, sometimes even three or…  read more

When I went back to school to study French I had a lot of people… and I mean a lot of people say to me, “So, you’re going to be a teacher, right?

“No?

“Well, what are you going to do with a degree in French?!”

I’ll tell you what… a lot!

As part of building this blog into a resource for language learners and teachers, we are kicking off a new series of guest posts by people who use multiple languages in their everyday work. You can expect to hear from industry leaders, international firms, artists, and individuals to get their perspective on why, and how bilingualism and multilingualism are important in the workplace.

We are happy to say that the search for…  read more

As part of our series on Language in the workplace, we will have guest contributors share their stories about how they use their language skills at work. Here, Juliana Rambaldi, opera singer.

by Juliana Rambaldi

It’s a lucky thing I turned out to be an opera singer. I love singing, and I love learning languages. Luckily for me, opera singing is all about voice and language.

Opera comes in a variety of flavors, but most of the great works are written in Italian, German, and French, with some important pieces in English, Russian and Czech. It’s vital to be able to sing and be understood in the top 3 (although admittedly, it’s hard to understand the words when we hit those high…  read more