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 (D’Angiulli, Siegel and Serra, 2001) and improves academic achievement (Armstrong and Rogers, 1997)
• There are important cognitive benefits associated with speaking more than one language (Bialystock, 2001)
• 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 children and one in ten secondary pupils already has an additional language. See the Community Languages part of the site for more details on this.