A language is a true life skill. Beyond the business case for languages there is profound benefit both culturally and to quality of life. 

In addition to the practical benefit of being able to communicate more successfully with more people, language learning brings cultural and educational advantages which are vital to our well-being:

• Learning other languages and valuing other cultures promotes tolerance and understanding at home and abroad
• Intercultural skills are essential to the success of multicultural teams and underpin good management in public services as well as in global business
• Language learning develops literacy and reading skills and improves academic achievement
• There are important cognitive benefits associated with speaking more than one language and introducing languages in primary schools has educational benefits across the curriculum
• Specialist interpreters and translators provide essential services for security, diplomacy, international development, human rights and the functioning of justice – as well as for international business, sport and cultural exchange
• Britain is advantaged in its linguistic potential: one in seven primary school children and one in ten secondary pupils already has an additional language, yet too often we regard bilingualism as a problem rather than a resource. In a world in which human beings speak 6000 languages, and only 6% of the population have English as their first language, we cannot afford to ignore the importance of other languages too. 

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language - that goes to his heart.” Nelson Mandela