Wanna make fast bucks? Learn a new language
Published on Saturday , July 07, 2007 at 23:26 in Nation section
JOB PROSPECT: With various MNCs setting up offices
in India, there is a huge demand for interpreters.
New Delhi: With various MNCs setting up their offices in India, there is a good demand for interpreters these days. You can get lucrative job opportunities if you have proficiency in German, French, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Persian etc. Delhi University (DU) and Jawaharlal Nehru (JNU) offer degrees in many languages.
Gone are the days when students preferred only German and French. Today Chinese, Korean and Japanese are equally popular. After looking at the lucrative job opportunities ahead of them, a lot of students are studying foreign languages. Linguists get employment at places like the UN, International Trade Organisation, UNICEF, apart from foreign airlines and with tour operators.
They can also teach in schools and colleges or other private organizations. Most of these jobs are highly paid. Even giving tuitions is another option, for which you can earn Rs 200 to Rs 500 per hour, while you can make Rs 850 for an hour for some guidance counselling. Freelancing is equally lucrative. Translation work fetches you Rs 500 per page.
If you want to study any language in Delhi, there are many options. Delhi University alone offers courses in nine languages - German, French, Hispanic, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic and Persian. It runs programmes right from undergraduate to PhD level. If you are interested in part time courses, you can take admission any of the 18 college including St Stephen’s, Hindu, Ramjas and Hansraj.
You can do a diploma and certificate courses in Spanish, German and French from these colleges.You don’t always need extra qualifications to learn a foreign language. Interest in a foreign language is enough to learn it. However, a degree in a foreign language gives you a distinct career advantage. Through language, you also understand that particular country’s culture.
JNU offers the best language programmes in Delhi. You can choose from various language options like Arabic, African Studies, Chinese and South East Asian Studies, Russian Studies, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin American Studies.
Apart from JNU and DU, other places with interactive teaching systems where you can pick up the language are Alliance Francaise for French, Max Mullar Bhavan for German, the Russian Centre for Russian. Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan offers courses in French, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, German, English and Chinese. YMCA also teaches German and French. Jamia Milia Islamia, Portuguese Cultural Centre , Italian Embassy Cultural Centre and Institute of Russian language, are some other places where you can learn foreign languages.
Max Mullar Bhavan has its branches in six cities. Alliance Francaise has 21 centres all over the country covering almost all the big cities. To learn Italian, Japanese and Korean, you can also contact cultural centres of these countries. Apart from these institutes, Pune, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and Punjab University also run courses in foreign languages.