Foreign languages and linguistics bot relate to language, but are very different. If you love learning languages, and want to speak Mandarin or Hindi or Spanish, you could major in those fields. There are many careers this can lead to – from international business to espionage. Linguistics, on the other hand, is the study of languages themselves. Linguists study how grammar evolved, how people learn language, and how to teach people second languages.

This video can help you decide if majoring or minoring in a foreign language is right for you:

This article from the Linguistics Society of America can help answer the question “Why Major in Linguistics?”

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Many topics fall under this umbrella. At the heart of linguistics is an understanding of:

• the unconscious knowledge that humans have about language
• how children acquire language
• the structure of language in general and of particular languages
• how languages vary
• how language influences the way in which we interact with each other and think about the world