Upvoting because I actually disagree. Learning a language is a personal journey and the only way to really do well is to be surrounded by it.
Popular opinion: there should only be one language
Which one?
Daedric
Counterpoint the USA has 350,000,000 people and landscapes from Arctic tundra to tropical islands and most everything in between. Learning another language may be fulfiling for many, but rhere is plenty to do and see without leaving US territory.
You can make this argument for not traveling g out of the country, maybe, but it’s not relevant here
lol, you don’t study a language to be able to order a beer in france
I don’t go to Alaska to order a beer either.
Fuck you because you said it should be mandotary . Who are you to decide what others should do with their time take your head out of your ass you piece of shit.
Chill out, no one takes your guns
Ok
What does this mean lol
As a bi-lingual person I disagree. It makes sense for me to learn english as it’s practically an universal language but if you already speak that natively then I don’t see a need to learn some other language just for the sake of it. Yeah it’s not a bad thing but also not necessary. I spent 6 years studying swedish aswell but I never bothered to actually learn it because Swedes can talk english better than I can talk swedish. Every single hour sitting in the swedish class could’ve been spent better doing literally anything else.
Swedish is my third language. As I became more proficient in it, I quickly realized how many nuances and how much content you actually miss by only communicating in English while you live in Sweden.
I’m sure that applies to all languages. Ironically I often struggle to express myself in my native language because I lack the finnish vocabulary for many on the words I use in english. Some words translate only into sentences and there often is no equivalance for many words in other languages.
Yeah, I had a similar experience with learning Dutch when living in The Netherlands.
That said I can understand the problem for native English speakers to learn other languages even when living abroad in a place like that: the locals usually speak English so well that when they hear somebody trying to speak their language but finding it difficult, and that person has an accent from an english-speaking country, they just switch to English, so the only way for the other person to keep on trying to use the lical language in day to day life to improve it is to forcefully keeping on speaking it even when a local has switched to English which can be interpreted as rude (I’ve actually had to do that once or twice, though not usually because my accent is from a country were most people can’t speak English decently).
I wouldn’t at all be surprised if that kind of thing also happens in Sweden.
I get it. I have only succeeded at learning languages I’ve been sort of forced to learn, even when I’ve also genuinely wanted to learn them.
I wanted to study an undergraduate degree that is only given in Swedish, so I went to school specifically to learn Swedish before that.
I work with programming so I’d get away only with English but somehow I’ve managed to reach a point where people mostly speak to me in Swedish, even though I don’t look Scandinavian. I have a coworker that keeps talking to me in English and I reply to him in Swedish and sometimes it takes him a while to notice we’re speaking different languages.
It does require a sustained effort and I slip when I’m lazy or tired. Also, having to use a language that doesn’t let me project the best of me can be challenging as an adult.
All of that is very much how it went for me, even down to the whole extra difficulty to look and sound articulate and knowledgeable when one is has the extra barrier of speaking a language when one is far from mastering.
If you live in Sweden, sure.
If I occasionally travel throughout Europe for work and pleasure, should I try to learn everything or stick with English?
…you say in English.
Also for the record if you learn 3 romance languages that’s the equivalent of like 2 normal ones because they’re so similar. Fight me.
…and English is my fourth language. Then I had to take French in school, so five total.
This is Europe.
Did you remember your romance language similarity discount?
(Congrats on 5 though, that is neat)
German, English, Danish, Swedish, French, and the little bit of Japanese I remember from working there 20 years ago.
Are romance languages not normal?
What does normal mean in this context? There are many different languages in the world. Romance languages are all pretty similar, as are Germanic languages. English is a mix of Germanic and romantic languages, and very similar to both. Thus learning any romance or any Germanic language is fairly easy for someone who knows English. It is much more difficult to learn a language from a different family.
I used to know some Spanish. I forgot it because I never use it. There’s just not much point unless you regularly leave the country.
Foreign language was mandatory for me, but it’s pretty hard to maintain language skills since there’s not a lot of opportunity to practice it naturally. It’s much easier to learn English because so much media is in English globally. I still think it’s good to teach, just for the experience of learning how to learn languages.
I’m fully on board with this. I only speak English, but I took Latin classes from 4th through 12th grade and I don’t think I learned any useful translation skills from that in the slightest. HOWEVER my Latin teacher in high school loved talking about the culture of ancient Rome and how that was impacted by/reflected in the Latin language.
As a programmer, I have learned a number of different programming languages and my favorite class in college was “Programming Languages” because of how different languages reflect and simultaneously determine different ways of thinking about a problem.
A language is a tool, and if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If the only way you can talk about things is the way you and the people you’re immediately surrounded by talk, then you only have a hammer in your toolbelt and you likely can’t even think about the problem in more than one way, let alone talk about it in more than one way.
More people would be more open minded, understanding, and worldly if they all learned to be fluent in at least a second language.
I had to downvote because I wholeheartedly agree with you.
We don’t really in the UK either.
The problem is there’s not really a good second language choice here.
When I was in school ~20 years ago you needed at least 2 years of a foreign language to graduate. Pretty sure that’s still the case.
Least embarassing thing about the US.
I used to think most people learn Spanish or one of the “immigrant” languages like German or French.
Which language?
Once I learn that language, how do I maintain it?
I’ve “learned” three languages aside from English over the years, and even when I’ve traveled to areas in the world that predominantly speak that language, English is so ubiquitous that it really didn’t matter if I knew it or not.
I’m essentially monolingual again, even though I can understand bits and pieces if necessary.
Once I learn that language, how do I maintain it?
The way non-English speakers do it: watch content on the internet in that language, listen to podcasts or simply read things written on that language.
The internet it’s a great tool to learn and practice any language, in the same way that it’s a great way to learn English for the rest of us.
Why? There is more great content in english than I could ever watch. and far more garbage as well af course. I could learn a language, but why?
i’m okay with spanish, it did me no good when I was in germany.
Bigger pool of culture - easier to find good things to your taste.
Also cultures are different.
There are many different english speaking cultures ifithat is what you want.
Yes, well, the world isn’t quantified into “mine” and “different”, “different” can be separated into “redder”, “bluer”, “colder”, “warmer”, “more random” and “more ordered”, “more scarred” and “more solid”, “softer” and “harder” and so on.
You are simply much more limited if you only know one language. This would seem to be obvious, I don’t get all the attempts to argue.
Yes, born in a country speaking world’s default language you have had fewer incentives to learn others, so in some sense you’ve been unlucky. Too bad, that doesn’t mean you should punish yourself by not fixing that.
While I’m in theory limited, there are more things to do in life than study other cultures. I have a todo list that I honestly expect it would take me 3000 years to get to the end of. (I doubt medical science will give me anywhere near that long to live). That I can’t learn about some culture in depth because I haven’t learned the language yet - well learning their language is something I’ll get around to when I’m 1000 years old.
I grew up in a household of my parents language, but speak predominately English. I also know enough French to navigate Quebec, and with a week, can remember enough Spanish from HS to go to Mexico. I learned bits of Russian and Chinese to speak to my coworkers, not enough to be dropped in a town and survive though.
And honestly, even after all of that… I rather people speak one language. And study international studies/geography and history.
Technology will reach a point where translations are near fluid. Traveling to Japan, I winged it with studying Japanese where my wife took courses, and we both ended up navigating in English and using Google translate, with very little hiccups.
Once I learn that language, how do I maintain it?
Go online, read books.
I’m essentially monolingual again, even though I can understand bits and pieces if necessary.
There are books never translated to English, poetry. Anyway, most translations are inferior to their originals.
Most people on the planet speak English to some degree, but the cultural heritage in other languages is mostly not available for English speakers.
This just makes you disadvantaged.
A large chunk of the population speaks Spanish yet it’s barely taught in schools
Every school I know of has four years of either French or Spanish.
I’m not sure how much of this has changed since I was a kid, but when I was in high school we had 4 years of Spanish and French, but only one year of either one was mandatory. Most kids in my school ended up just taking a year of Spanish as a freshman, and only those who actually wanted to learn another language elected for the remaining years.
Yeah, but it’s rote memorization. It’s not immersive usage. So almost no American students retain anything from those years of study.
Language education evolved from Greek and Latin lessons designed to get you I to college which required them because in the rennesance reading classical texts was important and the ability to was essential and it persisted for hundreds of years. Because of this speaking wasn’t a part if the pedagogy and is kinda tacked on in modern language ed
I’ve never known a school that requires 4 years to graduate.
What are you smoking?
Spanish classes are universally available Jr High and up.
Every school I know requires two semesters and they don’t have to be the same language if that’s even an option. I’m in a heavy Spanish speaking part of the US too.
Are they available to use the language or do they learn to count to 10 and how to order cheese?
My jr high required 1 semester of foreign language studies, and high school, 4 semesters. I think it also qualified as elective, so I was encouraged to take Spanish for all but my last year. I still understand a bit of conversation, but damn if I can carry a conversation after 30 years gap. It was rote memorization, so I can count to 15, and ask where the library is.
My high school teacher was also the math teacher. Old white male who has been to Mexico 3 times.
¿Donde esta la biblioteca?
I’m sure the quality of the curriculum varies greatly as education is largely controlled at the local level. I had excellent Spanish instruction available to me. In the last couple years of high school you had to read books in the language, and we weren’t allowed to use English in class.
