Some time ago I expressed dissatisfaction with the state of language learning in the United States. While the United States consists of much English and little else, the rest of world that I’ve been introduced to knows at least two languages. In China and India, it’s the native language and English. In Europe, it is three or more languages. Content with my conclusion that Americans made no attempt to bridge language barrier, I did no further research. It was not until weeks later that bits and pieces of conversations I’ve had with many people slowly started create a new picture.
The first crack in my conclusion came at a dinner one night with a friend of mine who was born into a bilingual living situation consisting of English and Chinese. I made the assumption that because he knew two languages that he was interested in language learning. As I pressed on in a conversation about language he said to me that knowing different languages is merely a tool for communication and nothing more. While yes, this is in fact a way to define knowing different languages, my choices of words would have added more emphasis for the opportunity to be introduced to knew cultures and ideas. This led me to the conclusion that I might be sitting in the minority of those who have a desire to learn new languages.
Some time passed and again language came up as a topic, this time with my friends from France. They expressed their frustration in learning the English language and having to pass an English test to get a chance to interview for certain jobs …a test .. what? I pressed on and realized that I naively believed that each company operated within their own language. To operate on a global scale, English is necessary.
Sitting somewhat in a state of denial about this new conclusion I continued on with more questions. First I went to my Indian friend who informed me that a large part of India is fluent in English. Then it was onto a Chinese friend who knows most of the people in the company I work for. I inquired about the languages spoken within the company. Besides English, there is one Chinese person who speaks French and one who speaks German. And that’s it.
It finally dawned on me, the United States people do not learn new languages because there is little reason to. With my European friends, multiple languages could be found in their backyards. With my American friends, unless you’re sitting along the border to Mexico, you’re not seeing much language diversity. More importantly than that, which affects all international competitors, is the age of globalization. Sitting as the leader in this movement was the United States. For those wishing to reach the level of the United States, English was a required tool. Sadly, it would appear then that language learning is largely fueled out of wealth and necessity and not by a desire to enrich lives and experience new things.
