NIU students who want to increase their language capabilities can take advantage of NIU’s foreign language department.

Currently, almost 3,000 students are taking a foreign language on campus, said Raymond Tourville, chairman of the foreign language department.

A big chunk of those, about 1, 200, are enrolled in beginning level Spanish classes.

“The world is getting smaller; learning a foreign language provides a basic understanding of people and their culture,” Tourville said.

A practical advantage of knowing a second language is that some jobs in the military pay a language bonus each month,Tourville added.

Knowing the language of the people can provide an edge when traveling or doing business abroad.

The department offers scholarships for students who want to study a language in its native place. Students have to take a foreign language as a major or minor in order to apply for it.

Last year, seven study abroad scholarships ranging from $500 to $3,000 were awarded.

A lot of the students who go abroad end up staying abroad, said Katharina Barbe, director of the division of German, Russian, Classics and Asian Languages.

“I went to France on a high school student exchange and fell in love with Paris,” said Rebecca Puckett, a junior French and anthropology double major. “Learning French is an excuse to go back.”

Barbe, who also teaches German, noticed her students learn a lot more about their own language after taking a foreign language.

Four languages – French, Spanish, German and Russian – can be taken as majors with an emphasis on language and literature or translation and business.

Minors are offered in Classical studies, Chinese/Japanese studies and Italian.

Students also can take Burmese, Greek, Indonesian, Latin, Polish, Portuguese, Tagalog and Thai.

The Bachelor of Arts degree requires students to take a foreign language for two semesters (five hours a week) or four semesters (three hours a week).