Re: Why Americans feel no compulsion to learn foreign languages

At 11:31 PM 3/28/96, Alan Horowitz wrote:
>Certainly, I believe TCM's proposition that there is no "economic need"
>for an American to learn a second language.
>
>On the other hand, I haven't seen any demonstration of the "value" of
>learning history. Yet, who would argue that ignorance of history is a
>good policy to follow?

Bad analogy. Studying a combination of world history and one's nation's
history is an obvious thing to do. And good bang for the buck.

Choosing a language is a much harder proposition. No single language stands
out for most Westerners, at least not nearly as much as it once did. (Or
one of several "top pick" languages, e.g., German, French, and Spanish.)

My last word on this language topic will be this: far from being a closed,
ignorant, immigrant-hating, shit-eating nation, as some of the usual
America bashers have intimated, the decline of language skills reflects a
decline in the "ethnocentrism" of the past. A few decades ago, one studied
German to be a scientist, one studied French to be cultured, one studied
Latin for unexplained reasons (just a joke), and one studied Spanish if not
one of the others.

As immigrant waves entered the U.S., and as the anti-Westernism meme spread
amongst educators, Latin faded out, then German, then French. (All are
still taught, but not in the numbers once seen.)

Given the explosion of languages--Yoruba, Talegu, Tagalog, Russian, Korean,
and on and on--the role of French, German, and to some extent Spanish is
less clear than ever. (Spanish is admittedly a growing language, but not in
technical fields...just a fact.)

So, I am not surprised that American students have no desire to learn one
of these languages. They'll have to search to find people to practice with,
which they won't (on average, not at the 2-sigma point).

While I don't deny the niceness of knowing Russian or Korean, the effort
needed to achieve reasonable proficiency (beyond the simple words Bill
Frantz was talking about....this thread is about actually learning a
language, not a handful of phrases!) is not worth, in my opinion and that
apparently of many others, the effort.

--Tim May


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Tim May writes:

> Given the explosion of languages--Yoruba, Talegu, Tagalog, Russian, Korean,
> and on and on--the role of French, German, and to some extent Spanish is
> less clear than ever. (Spanish is admittedly a growing language, but not in
> technical fields...just a fact.)

Entirely brushing aside the idea that there might be more to the world than
technical fields, my observation has been that knowing at least one
foreign language would be an enormous professional advantage. At one
computer company I worked for, the only person who could speak Italian was
in constant demand as an informal translator. Doing research, I have had
a number of occasions to regret my lack of proficiency with a foreign
language. I regularly come into contact with German and Spanish speaking
scientists. (Probably number one on the hit parade is Chinese, but I'm
kind of daunted by the idea of taking it on ;-). Granted, English is
the technical lingua franca, but the statement that there's no point in
learning a foreign language is shortsighted, and I think that will become
more true, not less, in the future.


> My last word on this language topic will be this: far from being a closed,
> ignorant, immigrant-hating, shit-eating nation, as some of the usual
> America bashers have intimated, the decline of language skills reflects a
> decline in the "ethnocentrism" of the past.

And besides, you only need Spanish for maids, gardeners, and day-laborers,
right?


                                  -- Will