America, Land of the Monolinguals

By: Olivia Raub for US News and World Report

Audience: College age students
Kairos: College students have foreign language classes at their disposal that are not being taken
advantage of
Context: US News and World Report, opinion section
Purpose: To convince the reader that learning foreign languages is a worthwhile pursuit

What is the purpose of learning a foreign language? As a native English speaker, I grew
up only speaking one language. None of my family members spoke foreign languages, and we
never took vacations to foreign locations, so what reason would I have to learn another
language? Why would anyone want to learn a foreign language?
It is no secret that America is lacking in the foreign language department. According to a
speech given by the American Secretary of Education, Just 18 percent of Americans report
speaking a language other than English. That's far short of Europe, where 53 percent of citizens
speak more than one language. As an American, Ive never had the need to learn a foreign
language. Essentially the only exposure I had to the concept was when an episode of Dora the
Explorer would come on the TV. It always seemed too hard and too far away to be relevant to
me.
When I got to middle school, it was mandatory for us to take one year of a foreign language.
My schools options were fairly diverse in comparison to those presented to others that Ive
talked to. They offered Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Russian. To be
honest, the choices overwhelmed me a bit. They were all so different and none of them seemed
very practical. When it came time for me to pick my language, I chose German. I struggled with
it at first, but I stuck with it all through high school and even passed the daunting AP test. Six
years later, Im still sticking with it at college. I even hope to eventually double major in it.
However, as far as I was concerned with it in middle school, I was going to continue speaking
English so the idea of learning another language was useless. This is the trap that many
Americans fall into; the idea that placing emphasis on learning other languages is useless
because everyone speaks English.
This is a very dangerous way to think. How many times have we all heard the outrage some
people experience when they hear people speaking other languages in America? How dare
people speak something other than our language!? For the people in this mindset, I have a
wakeup call. While we may speak English, the US has no official language. As shocking as that
is, it is the truth. While I am by no means advocating for the country to start speaking a language
other than English, I do wish for a bit of understanding. For example, when Americans go abroad
we often expect our host countries to speak English. According to one study, approximately of
the worlds population speaks English. So it shouldnt be a problem, right? For people who think
like that, I urge you to consider the opposite. When foreigners come here, are we as welcoming
to their languages and cultures? Are we willing to speak to them in their language? I find that the
overwhelming answer is no. How many times have we heard the slogan This is America, speak
English!? The assumption that everyone speaks English is not only dangerous, it is inaccurate
as well.
Studies show that people who take the time and effort to learn other languages actually
achieve a higher level of communication in their own native language. This can be summed up
with a quote from the famous German author, Goethe, Those who know nothing of foreign
languages know nothing of their own; or in his own words, Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt,
wei nichts von seiner eigenen. I, for one, would agree with this as I feel that I have developed
a better grasp of my native language, English, because of my acquisition of my second language,
German. Learning German has improved my sentence structure, as well as my grammar and
vocabulary. There are many benefits to be gained from being bilingual. With foreign language
understanding comes better multitasking and improved memory. According to a study published
in the journal Neurology, the onset of dementia can even be delayed by as much four and a half
years in people who learn a foreign language. These advantages are not strictly cognitive. In the
US, there is between a 5-20% salary increase for bilingual persons versus their monolingual
counterparts.
Not all of the advantages to learning a foreign language need to be conventionally practical,
either. Some of them are just plain fun. Once you start learning a foreign language, you begin to
realize just how deficient your own native language can be at times. This is not to say that I
dislike English, but there are many times when I find that the Germans would be able to say
something much more efficiently. This applies to words as well as phrases. Take into account,
for a moment, asking a yes-or-no question. In English, you are rarely entirely certain what the
answer you received was. Here is an example of an English scenario to illustrate my point. Say
you recall that your boss said that your meeting for today was cancelled. You might ask one of
your colleagues, There is no meeting today, right? Your colleague might respond with a simple
Yes. You pause, does that mean you do, or do not have a meeting? In German, the answer is
simple. They have a special word for a positive response to a negative answer. If there is no
meeting, the person would respond with the word for no, while if you are wrong they would
respond with doch. In this situation, saying doch would be the equivalent of saying Yes we
do, however it is more efficient seeing as it only takes one word, whereas English would take at
least three.
There are also simply words that the English language is lacking. Some of these words
eventually get appropriated into our language. The words that I am familiar with mostly come
from German, since that is the language that I have experience with, but every language has
similar ones. This includes words like wanderlust and schadenfreude. Some of the words that
English lacks can even be funny, such as backpfeifengesicht which means a face that needs to
be hit. Others are serious and capture actual feelings that we dont have a word for, such as the
word weltschmerz. Literally translated, it means world pain. It is used to describe a feeling of
overall weariness with the world. Another example that I love is the word unheimlich, which
literally means unhomely. It doesnt have a precise English translation. It is an adjective that
means that something is weirder than strange, but less weird than eerie. All in all, learning
these new phrases makes me, for one, pay more attention to the contexts of words I use in
English.
In Luxembourg, 99% of the adult population speaks at least one foreign language. While it
would be unrealistic to expect that much of the US, I do think it is possible for us to increase our
numbers. Learning another language hasnt always been easy, but I certainly feel it was worth it.
Not a day goes by where Im not thankful for the language opportunity Ive had. I leave you with
a quote to ponder from prominent 19th century doctor, poet, and professor, Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Sr., Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they
grow.