How to beef up your resume by learning a second language

A quick look at job listing site Indeed shows hundreds of positions in St. Paul alone right now seeking candidates who are bilingual.

And they’re not all for translators. Roles range from irrigation technician to mortgage loan officer to mental health counselor, with most paying at least $55,000 a year.

A 2019 survey of 1,200 U.S. employers, per a report from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, found nine out of 10 employers across the country rely on employees with language skills other than English. More than half of these employers were expecting their demand for multilingual staff to increase in the next five years, with Spanish, Chinese and French being the most in-demand languages.

“There are also a lot of critical thinking skills that get developed [by learning a language] … like perseverance and teamwork,” said Mandy Menke, director of language programs for Spanish & Portuguese Studies at the University of Minnesota. “It‘s really important to recognize that those are skills employers are often looking for as well.”

Beyond job prospects, proficiency in another language can also boost your earning potential. Language-tutoring platform Preply, in a survey of job ads and full-time staff across the country, found multilingual employees earn an average of 19% more than monolingual ones and are also 5% more likely to receive a raise.

From college classes to online tutors to language apps, here are some ways to learn a language no matter your budget:

Following the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages proficiency guidelines, college language programs at the University of Minnesota help students achieve what the council considers an advanced proficiency level.

“With that advanced level … you could work at a bank or jobs that require more nuance,” Menke said.

A college program can also offer study abroad opportunities and other immersion experiences, a critical part of learning a language, according to Anton Treuer, professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University. He learned the language through an unstructured immersion experience of his own.

After college, Treuer had a plan to “walk the earth” and hang with his elders, a quest his parents called “beautiful” but advised: “Good luck paying for that.”

He did pay, but it was an unplanned visit to 90-year-old Archie Mosay, who was laughing at a professional wrestling program on TV.

“He shut the TV off and said, ‘Oh, I’ve been waiting for you,’” Treuer recalled. “And I said, ‘Waiting for me? I’m a kid. You don’t even know who I am or where I’m from.’ But he had a dream about someone. I looked like this person in his dream, and for him, that was enough.”

Not everyone has the connections to sleep on the couch of a fluent speaker. But whether it‘s an expensive trip to Mexico or a free stop by a local Hispanic grocery store, challenging yourself to hear and speak the language is imperative.

“Anybody learning any language on planet Earth needs an immersion experience to really get them flowing and thinking in that language,” Treuer said. “… Otherwise, you’re not going to find the bathroom. You’ll be running out of the building.”

Those wanting to learn a language by taking college classes can start by browsing course offerings then consulting the admissions or enrollment offices on how to apply.

Factors like program duration, class size, study abroad programs and cost vary across schools. For example, the University of Minnesota, which offers majors and minors in more than 25 languages, costs state residents around $69,900 for bachelor’s, without loans or financial aid. Concordia College’s tuition is $15,200 per semester. St. Paul College costs $210.86 to $305.13 per course credit, and it takes 60 credits to complete an associate’s degree and 120 to complete a bachelor’s.

Some colleges also allow auditing classes for free or at a much lower cost, you just wouldn’t officially earn a degree or take any exams. Sometimes there are age restrictions to these programs, like the University of Minnesota aiming audits to mainly retirees. But the University of St. Thomas allows auditing for lifelong learners age 40 and older, plenty of time for late-career advancement.

Community education offers courses in many languages and at various levels. An introductory Japanese course offered this summer through the Minneapolis Public School District is $79, for example.

Using online tutoring platforms such as Preply, Varsity Tutors and Superprof expands your options, like taking Turkish lessons from a native speaker living in Paris.

Anil Kartal, project and product manager at Superprof, was at first an in-person tutor on the platform. While in college, he tutored a French student in Turkish for two years. According to Kartal, the student started at the level of being able to say, “Hi, how are you?” and ended up being able to read and write.

 “She went to Turkey, I know, a few times to spend time there, and she was able to communicate with locals,” Kartal said.

Superprof users have the flexibility of connecting with tutors either in-person, on the online platform or through other video call services. You can select from a list of vetted tutors based on their general location, price per lesson, rating and/or whether they’re a native speaker. There’s no set structure to the classes, only what the learner and tutor agree on, Kartal said. Other online tutoring platforms, like Preply, offer similar options.

Superprof charges a student pass of $50 per month to access the platform, and French tutors on there charge up to $80 per lesson. A lesson with one of Preply’s 4,109 French tutors costs anywhere between $3 to $40.

Tutoring offers a more personalized learning experience than classes or set programs, according to Ed Rosheim, CEO of Workplace Languages, a company that offers group and one-on-one language classes to U.S. corporations. From entry to executive-level positions, staff usually take 20 hours of individual classes that range from $80 to $120 per hour.

“If folks are at a very low level of English or Spanish, they need attention,” Rosheim said. “They need to have buy-in. It has to be engaging. If they’re just repeating the alphabet or conjugating verbs … it just won’t work.”

According to Straits Research, the number of language-learning apps is only growing: their market size was valued at $6.34 billion in 2024 and is estimated to reach $24.39 billion by 2033.

Wired rated eight popular language apps across different categories, like price and learning features. Popular options like Babbel and Duolingo made that list, and both have escalating subscription price tiers that unlock more features and range from a couple bucks a month to a couple hundred for a year or lifetime. Duolingo, which has tried to gamify the language-learning experience, has a free option, too.

Apps offer more flexibility and require less commitment than taking a class or hiring a tutor, according to Marcus Lowry, the Ramsey County librarian overseeing Transparent Language Online. Free to library patrons, the language-learning service offers instruction in more than 100 languages.

“[Transparent Language Online] is not set up where you have to do, you know, these five areas before you can do a different area. It‘s completely personalized, where people can just jump in at any point,” Lowry said.

Similar to other language-learning services, Transparent Language Online allows you to look up the vocabulary set you need, like researching sentences and questions related to ordering at a restaurant. Users can also record their pronunciations and compare them to those of a native speaker.

Lowry learned Spanish at the University of Minnesota after volunteering to help refugees from Central America at the Texas border in the early 1990s. He uses the library program as a refresher.

Some language apps, such as Rosetta Stone, can be very comprehensive, according to Treuer. For example, the Ojibwe Rosetta Stone Project will have six levels of instruction, with three currently available. Each level has an estimated 500 pages of language instruction.

Rosetta Stone charges $399 for a lifetime subscription to its Unlimited Languages package that has 25 languages, including Arabic, Japanese, Swedish and Vietnamese. You can also pay $131.40 a year to access online learning instructions for just one language.

“I think some people will do really well with Rosetta Stone or [other online language-learning services]. Some people really need human interaction,” Treuer said. “… I don’t think that there’s, like, a silver bullet solution or a one-size-fits-all.”

Hussein Abulamzi is a freelance writer based in St. Paul. His email is husseinabulamzi@gmail.com.