Using Social Media to Learn Foreign Languages

Every day more students choose to study abroad for a year or meet new friends who are taking a semester at their university.

Every day more professionals choose to improve their careers by working in different countries, absorbing the culture and the language.

This beautiful mix of people has created a need to stay in contact, to be able to talk with friends who live in China, South Africa, LA, Brazil or Russia. In the past the only language we heard day to day was our own –  our family, friends and colleagues all spoke in the same tongue. And yet now, some of us work in offices with colleagues from all over the world. So how do we keep in touch? Through social media, of course.

In the following video, people explain how they use social media to keep in contact with friends, and what languages they use; perhaps you are Japanese but use Skype in English or maybe you are French but have your Facebook in Portuguese because you lived for a year in Brazil.

How about you? How has social media helped you learn a language?

The video was created by Ls6, a European network that focuses on the challenges of social media and how it supports language interaction. 6 people are interviewed in Greek, German, Luxembourgish, French, Chinese and Romanian, with English subtitles.

Is this your situation too?