"Век живи - век учись" - A century for life - a century for learning

Today, I want to introduce you a wonderful Russian saying for the 1st of September, Knowledge Day.

Век живи - век учись! (It is never too late to mend, you are never too old to learn).

It is great thought, because if a person stop his education at the moment when he graduate college or university and study nothing after this - he is "dead" person. Such kind of people will never be good professionals, they never could be called "clever" or "intelligent" people, and they will never be interesting to surrounding people. 

Modern person should learn something new every day, because nowadays our world - it is a world of information. But it is important not only be able to get new information, but also to recognize it, to be ready to use it in the right way. 

So what can we learn every day? It can be anything useful or just interesting for you. You can always improve some professional skills reading some special literature, forums or visiting seminars and conference; you can read different interesting books for your own self-education, because it is always more pleasant to communicate with erudite and well-read person; you can search and work with some information about your hobbies, which will help you to become more advanced in this; and of course you can study languages!

Learning new languages is the best way to give opportunity to your brain for working  in new ways, to train your memory, to develop your association skills and of course - the way to get acquainted with other culture and mentality. It is like to learn some special code which helps you to understand other people.

Also in Russian language we have such saying: "Сколько языков ты знаешь - столько раз ты человек" (How many languages you know - so many times you are a human). I think it is very wise idiom, because language learning really let you to plunge in some special world - world of another culture, another life...

A new language can be necessary for your job, for relations and communication with other people, it gives you the opportunity to communicate with people from other part of the world, it gives you chance to read original books (because even the best translation is different from the original book), to watch movies in other language, or even just to develop yourself as an educated and interesting personality! And doing it with pleasure will help you to reach better results faster!

So today, in the Knowledge Day, I wish everyone to have enough time, strength and desire for self-education, including learning different languages! And if somebody needs help in learning Russian - please feel free to contact me, I am always glad to help everyone who wants to plunge in wonderful and charming world of Russian language! 

Nika Minchenko