Today I'm going to talk about a question that I've been getting quite a lot recently,

and that is "What kind of job can I do with my foreign language skills?"

or "What kind of job should I do if I'm interested in foreign languages?"

Now, this is a question that I respect because I've witnessed a lot of people

investing years of their life into studying a language, kind of with the

assumption that it would naturally improve their career or give them new

opportunities, but without having a plan for how they would use that language,

they didn't really benefit from it and ended up being quite frustrated.

So young people who are asking this question

early on, I think you are thinking about things the right way. But the answer to

this question depends on just how you imagine your life in the future and how

far you really want to go with your language study. Now, some jobs are

specifically language-related; other jobs are not specifically-language related,

but a foreign language could be an asset; and for other jobs, it's not really

necessary at all, but it might be useful for your overall lifestyle. I'm going to

talk about those three types of situations. So first up are jobs that are

specifically language-related. For these jobs, you need to have some expertise in

the language; you need to have a deep understanding of the language.

So, the first kind of job is to teach a language. Here in Japan, I know a lot of

people who teach English; I also know people who teach other languages, like

French or Spanish.

Now, even if you don't have a lot of qualifications, there are some

opportunities to teach your language, especially if it's a major global

language, and especially if it's English. But the more qualifications you have,

then, of course, the better opportunities you get and the higher pay you can get,

the better positions you can find. Now, if you want to study a foreign language

that's not your native language and then teach that language, then you're looking

at a situation where you really need to get some expertise; you really need to

get qualifications. You should get a master's degree or maybe a PhD or

qualifications that show that you know that language very well at an academic

level, at a deep level, not just a conversational level. That's if you're

going to teach a language that's not your native language. Now, another type of

job that is language-specific is becoming a translator or an interpreter. Now,

the difference between those, just to clarify, a translator is somebody who

translates texts; they translate written materials from one language to another;

but an interpreter is somebody who translates speech; they translate the

things people are saying live, in real time, as they are speaking. Now, being a

translator or interpreter requires you to have a very deep understanding of

that language, because there's really no room for error or misunderstanding. You

have to translate, sometimes, very important information, and mistakes could

be a big problem, so you need to have very good, almost native-level skills,

especially if you're interpreting in real time, but also, you need to learn the skills of

translation or interpreting. Those are separate skills that you need to learn

on top of knowing the language. So, for these jobs that are specifically

language-related, there's really no room for language dabblers. You really need

to have a comprehensive understanding of that language, and you have to be able to

show that you can use that language at almost a native level. Next up are jobs

that are not specifically language related; they are basically focused on

another skill that you need, but the language is an additional asset.

The first kind of job is one that requires some technical expertise, but having a

language on top of that will give you some extra opportunities; so an example

that I've heard is from an engineer. His company sells some sort of machines to

companies around the world, and they send this engineer to those companies so he

can teach people how to use those machines in their factories. So, he learns

foreign languages so that he can do that. I believe this guy in particular

was working in Indonesia, so he learned Indonesian to be able to teach those

people in their native language. Another example career is business with a

regional focus; for example, maybe you get a commerce degree, or you get a Masters

of Business Administration, an MBA, but also you have some language skills, and maybe

you work for a company that does business in that region or does business

with companies in that region. Another example career is the foreign service --

being a diplomat, being someone who works at your country's embassies abroad. When

you work in the foreign service, I think that often involves some kind of

language training before you are sent abroad, but knowing some languages in

advance before you apply is probably a big asset. Another example is being a

tour guide. Now, a tour guide's main focus is not the language; it's the history and it's the

anthropology and all of those sorts of things, but having in language that they

can explain things in, that will help them have other opportunities, so maybe

you might specialize in tourists from Japan. You learn Japanese; you can be a

tour guide for Japanese tourists. Depending on where you live,

another option might be to do some other job in the tourism industry or open a

business in the tourism industry. If you live on Bali Island in Indonesia, then you

would be crazy not to learn English and Japanese and maybe some other languages

that are common amongst tourists. Another career is being a cabin attendant. Now, their

main focus is on safety training, on emergency response and that kind of

thing, but knowing a language, that's an additional asset; probably, they need to

know English in most cases, but they also need to know the language of the country

they're working in or of the destination that they often fly to. Maybe

they don't need to know it fluently, but knowing some of that language will help

them deal with the passengers on the plane; so if you live in Los Angeles and

you often fly to Asia, then knowing Japanese or Korean or Mandarin or

another language like that would probably be a big asset. Now all of these

jobs I just talked about, they're focused on another important skill, so they're

not focused on language, so you don't need a specific language qualification

in most cases, but you need to be able to demonstrate that you can use that

language on the job. that's the most important thing. The third type of job I

want to mention is one that doesn't really have any language requirement, but

learning that language would be useful for your off-time and for your overall

lifestyle. So let's say that you live in Singapore, and your company does business

in English, then you don't have to learn any other language; people in Singapore

speak English, but nearby is Malaysia and Indonesia; so let's say you want to

travel there on your off time. learning Malay or learning Indonesian would be very

useful in that situation, so think about the kind of lifestyle that you want to

have, and think about how languages fit in with that. Let's say that you want to

live the corporate expat lifestyle in some place like Hong Kong. Then, you can

study Cantonese while you get your finance degree, or you get your MBA or

whatever. If you want to be a programmer, and you can program from your laptop

anywhere in the world, then think about what country you would like to live in, and

learn the language of that country. If you're an avid traveler, and you love the

idea of living in different countries all the time, then you can learn how to

do businesses on the Internet, and you can learn the language of whatever

countries that you want to spend an extended period of time in. Or if you want

to learn a foreign language, and you want to someday reach an expert level and be

able to teach that language, then plan ahead for that; maybe go for your master's

degree or PhD. Try to really get a deep understanding and overall knowledge of

that language. So these are just my thoughts on it, based on things that I

know and things that I've heard, but a lot of the viewers have different

perspectives. Some of you probably have jobs that involve foreign languages, so

we want to know what you think. If you have any other ideas or any questions

about this topic,

leave them down below. Thank you for watching, and have a nice day.