All last month, I shared blogs related to advice for working in international humanitarian development. I had intended to stop at the end of the month, but I have a few more blogs to share on the topic.
This one is about choosing a second or third language to learn to improve your international development career opportunities.
First and foremost, when trying to choose a language to study, don’t get hyperfocused on what the “right” language might be. The demand for languages can ebb and flow: there have been times when I felt like every job that I would love to do and that is in high demand requires Portuguese (for work in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Macau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe). And then, poof, a time comes when it seems no one is asking for that anymore. Instead, pick a language that you enjoy. Learning a language well enough to work in it is a MAJOR time investment. It’s like a marriage: you have to spend time on it every day for it to work, and you have to spend time with it even when you might not really feel “into” it at every moment. You need to pick something that you personally enjoy, as you are going to be spending a huge amount of time with it.
You also want to think about WHERE you want to work. If you really want to work in a particular region, what is the official language of that region? Sure, there are people that speak Spanish and then get sent to Armenia – a language isn’t a guarantee that you are always going to get a job in the region where that language is spoken.
French is a great choice, as it’s an official language in more than 25 countries. You will see it asked for regularly in job descriptions for UN positions. It is also a very popular second language. French is highly sought after for roles throughout Africa and the Caribbean.
Arabic is a great choice, as it’s the official language in 19 countries or so, many of them a joy to work in. Note that Arabic is going to be MUCH more difficult to learn than any language that uses the Latin alphabet.
Russian is still a good choice as a second or third language and will be for quite a few years to come. Beyond the obvious place it’s spoken primarily, it’s also an official language in Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan, and is widely used Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Estonia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. A lot of older people still speak Russian in Eastern Europe. You will have to learn an entirely new alphabet, as it is not written with the Latin alphabet.
You might want to pick a language that could serve you beyond a career in international development – as in a language that’s represented among immigrants wherever you hope to retire someday.
Picking a language that is more niche can also be a great choice for making you more competitive. For instance, I have a colleague who, MANY years ago, invested in learning Dari and Persian Farsi, knowing it would land her work in Afghanistan and Tajikistan regularly, where jobs were in high demand at that time, and it did, for years (along with her area of expertise, not just her language abilities). But then, wham, August 2021 happened and her job prospects got severely reduced. But for more than a decade, she was a hot commodity in international development circles.
I have a colleague who is fluent in English, French and German, and its the GERMAN that has sometimes been the biggest asset, because the project she applies for has a major German funder, and when they visit the country where she is working, they love that someone can speak to them in German. And when I did a motorcycle tour of Eastern Europe, I was stunned at how many people spoke German as a second or third language, especially in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
Another good way to choose might be regarding your area of expertise. What do you do? Public health? Small business development? IT? Elementary education? Emergency services management? What area of development is your area of concentration when it comes to international work, and regarding that, how many professionals are there that do that work and that, say, speak French? Or Arabic? Or whatever language you might be interested in?
As for my own story: before I knew I was going to pursue a career in international development, I focused on Spanish. It’s a language I like a lot and, living in the USA, I knew would be helpful. But it hasn’t helped me much in my international development career, because what I do as a professional in humanitarian development (and nonprofit management, for that matter) is EASILY found among native Spanish speakers throughout the Northern and Southern hemispheres. By contrast, if I’d chosen pretty much ANY other language, even French, I would have been way more marketable/competitive in this field. But it was something that I didn’t realize until I was almost 40, and by then, I just wasn’t up to a “divorce” and remarriage, when it comes to language… that said, my Spanish skills have served me well when I travel to Central and South America: I’m most proud of when I was in Paraguay with Habitat for Humanity and could talk with both local Habitat employees and the family where we were building a house. And in my nonprofit work, I’ve been able to use it on occasion, including when editing a video that featured a Spanish client.
There are benefits to learning a second languague (or more!) beyond your career:
- Once you learn a second language well enough to have daily conversations in it, learning a third language (or more!) will be easier, because your brain better understands how to learn a language, you better understand parts of speech, etc. You may struggle at first, trying to speak that stronger second language when you should be using the third language, but trust me on this, it DOES get easier the more you do it.
- A review of more than 20 existing studies determined that the onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms is slower to develop in bilingual individuals versus people who speak only one language, or monolinguals. The researchers discovered that the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are halted by up to five years, on average, in people who fluently speak more than one language (the study did not substantially show that bilingualism deters Alzheimer’s disease incidence rates; only that it helps to delay symptoms).
- Learning another language contributes to forming new connections in the brain and strengthening nervous system links. Just one week of learning a new language has a positive impact on a person’s levels of alertness and focus. People who speak a second language regularly perform better on memory tests than monolingual people.
- Being able to communicate with someone that you could not communicate with otherwise, whether it’s someone on a bus, someone at a party, someone’s partner, someone you encounter while traveling, is amazing. It’s a superpower.
That’s my advice on learning another language specifically to improve your international development career opportunities. Really interested to hear what others say in the comments.
Also see:
Movies I recommend if you want to do international aid work, foreign affairs or journalism abroad.
Working abroad is not always looked on positively when looking for a local job.
US Citizen? Planning a career in international humanitarian affairs? You might want to rethink it.