Summer's coming...ice-cream and exam results!

Well as another summer brings about a flurry of flip-flops, Bermuda shorts and white legs-turning-pink, thousands of youths will be receiving their exam results, planning graduation parties and starting out down new career paths.

Fortunately many of them will have studied languages and we’re not just talking about A-Levels or Scottish Higher results, but up and down the country thousands of graduates will soon be the proud owners of a language degree.

Congratulations to every one of them, even if the results didn’t quite meet their expectations. The truth is that having a language qualification is more important that the level of that qualification. Why?

1. Languages are alive - they constantly change and develop, and that means you will always have more to learn. If you’ve studied maths, for example, you’ll have had to learn methods and formulas that you can apply to specific problems - but once you understand those methods you’ve got it cracked! Languages are different - you can spend all your time studying but you’ll always come up against new words, phrases or expressions.

2. Language skills - even if they are imperfect, basic or rusty - will always be useful because no matter where you go in the world (perhaps with the exception of France!) people always appreciate the fact that you are willing to try and speak their language.

3. Language skills are desperately needed - without them businesses can’t function, and governments would be stuck. Translators, interpreters and teachers might be the best examples of language professionals but what about other jobs where languages can be useful - administration, sales, hospitality and tourism, logistics, engineering, telecommunications - language skills are highly valued, and employees with language skills often command a higher salary.

So whatever your result, be a happy linguist and use you skills, develop them and let other people know you have them. You never know where those skills will take you!