How Learning Foreign Languages Can Help Travel Nurses

The world is facing a disturbing healthcare challenge: rising needs but a lack of available professional care.

The United Nations notes that the nursing shortage is affecting people across the European Union; the situation is similar in the US. Multiple factors are contributing to this scenario, from overburdened hospital staff to administrative and logistical challenges.

Travel nurses can effectively bridge this gap in healthcare. These professionals share their time across facilities, working in high-need areas to ensure that patients have continuous support. Most travel nurses work with staffing agencies so they can be readily available when a need arises.

Besides professional competencies, working as a travel nurse requires unique skills, such as openness to different cultures and the ability to absorb new learnings. If you’re planning to dive into this profession, you will find picking up a foreign language particularly beneficial.

Communicating With Patients, Expertly

The standout advantage of learning a popular foreign language, such as German or Spanish, is being able to interact confidently with your patients. Many people find it easier to voice their concerns when they can talk in their native tongue.

Moreover, they may lack the appropriate words or phrases to explain their grievances in a language that’s unfamiliar to them.

Language experts have found that we tend to feel greater emotional intensity when conversing in our mother tongue. Language influences our moral decision-making, a phenomenon called the moral foreign language effect. It follows that people may express their health concerns more honestly and effectively when they can speak to a nurse in a familiar language.

In fact, a BMC Medical Education study found that a language barrier in the medical field can affect empathy and ease of collecting medical history. The overall state of patient care suffers when professionals cannot communicate in a patient’s first language. Therefore, nurses who go the extra mile to speak a shared tongue can improve health outcomes.

Tapping Into Local Support Systems

Travel nurses must be adept at leveraging local facilities, including medical equipment and devices their patients need. These arrangements often require interacting with third-party providers. The discussions become trickier when you cannot converse in the language of the land. Moreover, communicating in a foreign language can cause local providers to see you as an external agent. They may choose to leave you out of crucial tenets of care they would discuss with a native health professional.

For instance, some medical devices have gained notoriety in specific regions, owing to design and manufacturing flaws. In the US, the ongoing Bard PowerPort lawsuit highlights manufacturing and design defects in these implantable ports.

However, the intensity of legal action may not be the same across the globe. TorHoerman Law notes that many US patients who used these ports for long-term vascular access, such as during chemotherapy, have faced serious complications. As a nurse, you may make a faulty decision if you are unaware of these local dynamics.

In contrast, a foreign language can help you build meaningful networks in different geographies and rely on them for trustworthy healthcare solutions.

Being Open to New Career Opportunities

Apart from helping you deliver more effective care to your patients, a foreign language can also support you personally. You can accept new job opportunities, even in far-flung locations, helping you help more people.

Around the world, some regions remain severely devoid of healthcare access. A Harvard University feature observes that indigenous populations in Mexico continue to suffer from maternal mortality and childhood respiratory and intestinal infections. Many people still speak indigenous languages, although broken Spanish is often understood.

As a nurse appointed to these areas, being able to converse in a language people speak will be non-negotiable. It is the only way to avoid apprehension and mistrust (or at least reduce it to some degree).

Besides, a foreign language can also serve to satisfy your wanderlust. Arguably, many people are drawn to a career as a travel nurse to combine their passions for healthcare and exploration. People become much friendlier, and places are much easier to navigate when you can interact with them in a shared tongue.

Specifically, you will find language skills helpful in managing your day-to-day activities as a travel nurse. These could include accommodation or food, or even discussing a patient’s health with their caregivers.

Since many travel nurses work in emergency care or areas affected by natural disasters, knowing the language will be even more crucial. Earlier in 2025, nurses provided invaluable support during the disastrous 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Myanmar. You cannot expect handholding for relief services at such times; no one will have the patience to help you understand what’s happening.

Working as a travel nurse can be fulfilling: you reach out to people regardless of physical boundaries, offering support wherever it is lacking. It is also an exciting career that allows you to live in new places and meet people whose paths you may not have crossed otherwise. We strongly recommend learning a foreign language (or two) to bolster your competency in this role. Consider it an essential soft skill to establish meaningful care-based relationships with your patients.