America Fails – When it comes to learning foreign languages
I recently had to write a speech for my speech class I’m taking this semester and since this blog is turning into something about my studies in Japanese on the side I thought this maybe appropriate as well. It might be a little tl;dr but at least check out the statistics. They really did surprise me, and actually made me feel proud about my major. America fails so much some times.
Ohayo gozaimasu. Watakushi wa Bryan to moushimasu. Dozo yoroshiku. A lot of you probably didn’t understand me just now but that’s okay… It really doesn’t matter, or does it? What if someone comes up to you on the street one day and asks, “Thomas biru wa doko desu ka?” What will you say? How will you react? Now consider this situation. The company you’re working for wants you to go on a business trip to China and meet with a company there that your company wants to collaborate with. Upon meeting the people of this Chinese company what kind of greeting will you give? What kinds of expressions will you use?
According to the Washington Post who posted a survey by National Geographic-Roper, nearly half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 do not think it necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news is being made. More than a third considers it “not at all important” to know a foreign language, and only 14 percent consider it “very important.”
Wow, this is a problem in America today. Not enough of us are learning a foreign language. This should at least begin here in college because we have the opportunity to choose these classes and yet we don’t. I didn’t start as a freshmen here at Penn State instead I transferred here because I changed my major to Japanese. I had to leave my other college for Penn State because it didn’t offer the kinds of foreign language classes Penn State has.
And so today, I am going to inform you that not enough Americans are learning a second language and these consequences.
In today’s America it is not enough to have knowledge without knowing a foreign language. At the very least this should begin in college, but not enough college students in America are taking courses in foreign languages.
According to the Philadelphia Tribune only 8 percent of U.S. college students take courses in foreign language. Two thirds of all U.S. high school students graduate without studying a foreign language.
Also over 82 percent of the U.S. population speaks only English according to Census Bureau statistics.
I honestly could not believe these statistics when I read them. That means somewhere out there in America there are colleges and high schools that do not require you to have language credits to graduate. Although, let’s not forget the high schools and colleges that do offer foreign languages which are usually the common Spanish, German and French. These are fine, but consider this.
In a 2006 study by USA Today, less than 1% of today’s high school students are studying the languages likely to be among the most important to the USA’s future: Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Japanese, Russian and Urdu, according to the Education Department.
What is this teaching us? That the majority of the world speaks English or maybe it’s more like Americans likes to think that it does. American schools are also losing a great opportunity to teach younger children a foreign language.
According to the Chronicle of High Education, studies have repeatedly shown that children’s brains are ripe for language learning at an early age, but American schools are missing that opportunity: As of 1997, according to the most recent survey by the Center for Applied Linguistics, less than 15 percent of elementary-school students were studying a foreign language, compared to almost 52 percent of high-school students.
Not only are American schools a problem. American business is having trouble as well. English is the global default language for business, monolingual executives place themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Increasingly, they’ll be up against foreign counterparts who understand not only their own language and culture but also those of the USA.
According to the USA Today, in China, more than 200 million students study English.
How many students in America do you think are studying Chinese?
In 2006, just 24,000 American kids were studying Chinese.
To compete in the global market America needs foreign language speakers.
In respose to learning foreign languages, Michael Eskew, CEO of UPS said to USA Today,”With the next generation, we need to do a better job of this, especially languages like Chinese. We’re going to be partnering with these people. We need to understand their culture and their language.”
Recall earlier in my speech the business situation I presented. Visiting a foreign company and how would you react.
According to The New York Times, veterans of the overseas business circuit say that despite the spread of English worldwide, those linguistic gestures promote familiarity by showing that you have done your homework and care about getting along.
Being aware of even some expressions or sayings does have some benefit.
Though, as I have informed you not learning a second language in America is a problem.
Many of us on all levels elementary students, high school students, college students and adults are contributing to this problem of not learning a second language. 91 percent of college students like you and I in America are not learning a foreign language.
So next time you’re picking your classes for the semester and deciding if you want to take another health class for an easy A consider taking a course in a foreign language it just might help you down the road.
Susan Jacoby 2008. The Dumbing Of America; Call Me a Snob, but Really, We’re a Nation of Dunces. The Washington Post, February 17, http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed February 23, 2008).
Linn Washington 2007. Language arts languish in America. Philadelphia Tribune, December 25, http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed February 23, 2008).
David J. Lynch 2006. U.S. firms becoming tongue-tied ; Global trade requires foreign language skills :[FINAL Edition]. USA TODAY, February 9, http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed February 23, 2008).
RONALD D. LIEBOWITZ 2006. What America Must Do to Achieve Competence. The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 24, B10. http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed February 23, 2008).
David J. Lynch 2006. U.S. firms becoming tongue-tied ; Global trade requires foreign language skills :[FINAL Edition]. USA TODAY, February 9, http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed February 23, 2008).
David J. Lynch 2006. U.S. firms becoming tongue-tied ; Global trade requires foreign language skills :[FINAL Edition]. USA TODAY, February 9, http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed February 23, 2008).
Paul Burnham Finney 2007. Not Lost in Translation. New York Times, February 20, Late Edition (east Coast). http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed February 23, 2008).
Picking up a foreign language is an advantage, even if you don’t really get to use it. It’s something like picking up a programming language.
Yeah, Americans fail. We don’t learn languages at an early enough age, and kids here are so stupid that they don’t think other countries are relevant at all -_-
It’s times like this when I’m glad I wasn’t born and raised in the states.
Actually scratch that, I’m glad all the time that I wasn’t born and raised in the states. XD
Yes, Americans fail. But I don’t think it is just only on American education on foreign languages. I think it has alot more to do with American culture.
Let’s face it. As much as anime has taken over a good chunk of our own lives, we don’t see much of it at all in the American mainstream. Asian culture in America has always taken a backseat to black and latino culture. America is getting more bilingual but that’s because of the growing number of Spanish-speakers in America. Just look at presidential ads. Obama’s running ads with “Si, se puede! (Yes, we can!)” and not with “hai. watashitachi ga dekimasu yo! (according to bro)”
As anime fans committed to our hobby, I always feel like we should attempt to be ambassadors of not just our own fandom culture, but also ambassadors of the greater culture that forms our fandom. I think this another reminder of that.
School is generally a lousy place to learn a language and this is why kids shy away from it. You learned your first language from the interactions you had with your environment, not from a book. Look at me, I’ve studied French, Spanish, and German when I was a kid and none of those classes have come close to matching how much Japanese I’ve learned simply watching Anime.
houkoholic@ ORZ You are so lucky. I want to join Yukarin’s fanclub too! Grrr.
koneko-chan@ I had read an article during my search and I didn’t keep it but it said something about Spanish and not being regarded all that highly as a “foreign language”. I’m not sure why and I wish I saved the article but it didn’t help me so I only glanced at it. I’m guessing the reason was because so many people know it already who are Spanish and know English already… But I could be wrong.
Also, I dunno. I wasn’t particularly referring to just Asian culture in my speech. I only spoke Japanese and used Asian examples because that’s what I found via research and I am familiar with that. I’m pretty pro-learning foreign languages all around. Not just Asian ones.
mikemil828@ I don’t quite agree with you because a classroom setting doesn’t always have to be boring. Also, to be honest, I hate the kind of person that thinks they can learn a lot of Japanese from anime alone. The only thing anime can help you maybe with is weird grammar and vocabulary. To use a more American example, it’s like using say a popular sitcom to learn English. It doesn’t work right and is a bad portrayal of the language you want to learn. You ARE better off in that classroom setting if you’re serious about the language.
Did I say that Anime was a particularly good way of learning the language? No I did not. However in my case it’s proved itself better than any of the classes I’ve taken.
If you want a better example of what I’m going at look no further than Japan. English is a required course, and it is reasonable to say that Japanese people are a pretty smart bunch. However you don’t have to go far to see that even with the 6-10 years of state mandated education, many Japanese grasp of the English Language are tenuous at best. All the education in the world will not help you if you do not have the ability to put it into practical application, and for many Japanese they generally do not have that opportunity.
The same thing can be said of America, you can ponder what you are going to do if someone out of the blue asks you “Thomas biru wa doko desu ka?”, but is it really going to be all that likely that this is going to happen to you if you live anywhere outside the west coast? Probably not. Then ask yourself why would someone want to learn a language if the only realistic way of ever using it is if you actually go to a place where that language is used?
In short, you are making much ado about nothing. The reason why most Americans are lacking in foreign language skills is because your typical American doesn’t need to know Urdu to go about his business everyday. And that instead of learning a language they’ll probably never use, generally they put their studies into something a bit more relevant to their life. Sure there is always the need for those who understand other languages, however there are far more more efficient and easier methods to teaching those that need to know it than classrooms.
mikemil828@ I really don’t think I am making much ado about nothing. Personally I find it sad that “your typical American doesn’t need to know Urdu to go about his business everyday”. It’s stuff like this that DOES lead to the cultural unawareness and the isolationalism that America has had and probably still has even past 9/11.
Just because America is sitting on it’s own with no real foreign countries around it’s borders shouldn’t mean people can just give up learning these kinds of things, which is a shame. But then again, I too hate being forced to take classes that I don’t want to take too like American Studies and math so I can understand what you’re getting at.
It’s just one of those things where you find something really fun and you want other people to try it too but they may not like as much as you do.
Interesting and quite strange.
In my country, every kid starts a foreign language from third grade at the latest, some as early as first grade.
Right now in the part of Europe where I live to know less than two foreign languages means you are not competitive on the labour market, so the vast majority of the young population that wants to have good career opportunities knows either English and/or German, if or then they make the effort to study another language.
I can’t say that the languages of the future like Russian or Chinese (I don’t think Urdu is that important in the future of the EU) are popular here, but still at least the population has command of foreign languages and realises the importance of being able to communicate without the need of an interpreter.
Alexis@ I have friends that have traveled to Germany and have spent a good a while there and what you say is basically the same things they’ve told me. It really is a lot different in Europe because there are all those other countries that speak different languages as well.
Yes America Fails
and they fail pretty horribly, its sad that my high schools student body was 50% latino and pretty able in speaking spanish, and as a result my high school offered a full 5 periods to learn spanish which most students who were fluent would take it to get an easy A.
However classes such as french only received 2 periods and japanese received only two. I’m not sure how the setup for the french class was but for the japanese, one period was filled with about 44 students who wanted to japanese level 1, while the other class combined japanese 2, 3, and 4 into a single period to make like 42 students (note the class size was not suppose to exceed 32 students). And this class size issue was ignored by the office until about 3 months later in which some students were forced off to french (only the level 1 class) while nothing was done for the level 2, 3, 4 class
Think about this, 1 teacher has only 1-50 min period to teach levels 2, 3, and 4 students simultaneously. Thats just insane and counter-productive. The end result was that she would teach level 2 on mondays and wednesdays, 3 on tuesdays and thursdays, and friday would be quizes with some cultural activity for everyone. and not to forget about level 4, they were just put on self-study and if they had any questions to ask while she wasnt busy.
( i am in college right now but its alot better since they offer dedicated classes to a few languages)
Learning a second language can be helpful but what would probably be more helpful to American students would be some sort of class that introduces the different cultures to students.
And in reality, before college the acquisition of a second language falls behind learning to read, learning English, learning basic math including algebra and geometry, learning a basic understanding of the sciences like biology or chemistry, learning a bit about American History and how the government works, economics, heck – i’d put learning CPR and the Heimlich maneuver before learning a second language. And if anyone looks at how well the schools preform in America they’d see that getting kids to learn just part of this list is a very difficult task so how could you expect a student to learn a second language?
In college I’ve found it’s really about preparing a person for a specific job, be it an engineer, teacher, scientist, etc. so if a class is not vital for that job, a student doesn’t take it. Now if there was time in college and language classes weren’t so insanely hard then I’m sure most people would be more open in taking these classes.
Personally, I’d rather have a class where I’d have to write 4 or 5 papers that were 20 pages in length then have to take a language class, but that’s just me. And I’ve had 3 years of Spanish in H.S. but in the ten years since graduating I haven’t used this knowledge once. Sure I might hear Spanish spoken a couple of times a year but it’s always been a family talking amongst themselves or by someone who works at McDonald’s talking to a coworker so I feel that all that effort was a gigantic waste of time.
I’d hazard a guess to say when learning a second language becomes important enough then we’ll see it being done more.
(I don’t want to sound like I’m attacking you or anything like that. I guess what I’m saying is learning a second language is a luxury most students at present don’t have.)
since no one else has translated this- I’m going to.
ps- I leaned all this from anime.
“Ohayo gozaimasu”.
Ohayo is equivalent to “good morning”, and gozaimasu is the honorific designated to be used with it.
“Watakushi wa Bryan to moushimasu”
<a formal way of saying (roughly) “Hello, I’m Brian” Watakushi is (give or take) to refer to oneself (I) “wa” is the linking verb- which in this case means “am” (“I”+”am”=”I’m”) “moushimasa” means “Hello”- and “to” -I don’t yet know, because I’ve yet to learn the Japanese words that focus on grammar structure.
“Dozo yoroshiku”
Dozo means “I’m honored” “yoroshiku’s meaning can vary pending context, but I think it would translate more literally “to be in one’s care” or “to take care of”
“Thomas biru wa doko desu ka?”
“biru” is the Japanese romanization of “beer”, “wa” is a linking verb which in this context means “are” “doko” means “where” desu’s meaning again varies based on context, and in this context it means “the”- but the literal translation is “to be”. finally, “ka” is the Japanese equivalent of a question mark- that is, “ka” is added on to denote that a question was asked. so, unlike most languages, it’s very unlikely in Japan for a person fluent in Japanese to mistake a question for a statement (or vice versa) when speaking with another that is fluent in Japanese.
well, how did I do? was it accurate?
jbcandid@ You’re a wrong on some important things. Moushimasu is from the verb mousu which is the extra modest form of iu (to say/call). To is used in this case to mark an utterance or something like that. Similar to ‘to iu’ or ‘to omou’
“Thomas biru wa doko desu ka?”
Biru in this case is an abbreviation for building. Wa isn’t a verb it is a particle subject marker and really has no translation. If anything it could mean As for or Speaking of. Uh, I don’t know where you learned desu having multiple meanings, and one of them meaning the. Desu = is, are, am
勉強したらどうですか
I would recommend hitting the books a little more.
thanks Koji Oe, your instruction regarding this was very helpful. Ironically, I thought that “wa” was the word meaning “is,are,am,etc”, and that desu was (as you said) the particle subject marker (in other contexts of course -lol). seems that I somehow got mixed up on that. I find it interesting that “biru” would mean building- is the romanization for “beer” the same spelling or different?
I was concerned about how contexts such as “Justin desu” didn’t seem to translate properly- “hontou tasukete masu, arigato gozai masu”
just to let you know- that last comment is by the same person as jbcandid (I just got a wordpress account- and the id is different).
for those that want to learn Japanese- this seems to be a great resource:
http://www.timwerx.net/language/
Learning a foreign language helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease and this is an extremely important reason for learning Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, French, Arabic, etc. Do any of you realize that not only is Alzheimer’s disease fatal but that it is also the seventh leading cause of death for Americans? Please get busy learning other languages so that you can avoid this terrible disease. Right now I’m learning both Spanish and Arabic.
hold up your japanese is wrong too….
Ohayo gozaimasu. Watakushi wa Bryan to moushimasu. Dozo yoroshiku
’私は’必要じゃない！！！！！そして俺や僕は私の方よりいい?
だからあなたの日本語は酷いです。
どぞじゃんくてどうぞ！！！
外人ってば。。。 もう諦めるか
Sara@ 先生の所為です。
Yes, let’s berate someone else’s language skills to feel better about ourselves instead of teaching them exactly what is being done wrong. Real mature. Yes, I forgot a う in どうぞ sue me.
I’m only using what I’ve been taught, and in class we’ve never used 俺 and 僕 even though we are taught to be aware of them. If you’re trying to troll me you hit all the right buttons, faggot.
I am writing an essay on America’s widespread inability to achieve fluency in foreign languages. I found this site while researching the topic and I thought that maybe you guys could answer some questions I have. For example, I know that German students are required to take English classes starting in 3rd grade and up through university and that some of their other classes are taught in English. I wanted to know how it worked in other countries; I’m assuming that other countries also have English classes from an early age, but do they also have classes taught in English?
Hello,
Great post.
Japanese is so hard for me. I’ve lived in Japan for 2 years but failed to speak fluently. Now, I’m in China, I’m having an easier time with Mandarin. I wrote a blog post about the difficulties I had learning Japanese over Chinese. TheShanghaiExpat. Please feel free to visit and let me know if you are interested with link exchange.
Nikou
Thanks for the comment.
Yes, Japanese can be difficult, but I don’t think it is so difficult. Good luck in your studies, and have you tried the Japanese All the Time method? That might help you.
This comes from the misguided and outdated attitude that America is the center of the world. If it ever was, it definitely isn\’t now.
The ability to speak foreign languages well is a tremendous asset in today\’s global economy. Like it or not, globalization is happening and cannot be stopped. And along with the knowledge of languages goes cultural sensitivity. Sadly, most Americans lack both. For as diverse as the roots of the American nation are, the nation itself is strangely ethno-centric, with a me-first, America-first, screw-the-rest-of-the-world attitude. By being like that, Americans are generally shutting themselves out of a huge amount of interesting career opportunities. As when Americans fail in the global market place, so does America.
I work abroad, and I speak 4 fluently and almost equally well (English, German, Russian, Czech), 4 others so-so (Spanish, Italian, French, Polish), and a few basics in Thai, Bahasa Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. This is because, although I am American, I was born in Europe and my higher education is part from Europe and part from the States. What also helped me is that I did my thesis work in Latin America and after graduation I have worked in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Dubai, Nigeria, Angola, Russia, Germany, Austria, Romania and the Czech Republic.
Not only career options but also a chance to expend their minds and learn and consider other ways of thinking.
Very interesting that you’ve studied all those languages, and you have quite a background. Any suggests for those learning foreign languages?
You are correct: “not only career options but also a chance to expend their minds”. But, knowing that your average American is absolutely convinced that his country is the center of the universe, the motivation to “expand their minds” falls on deaf ears. They are generally not interested in bettering themselves. Thus the phrase “expanding their career options” is more down to Earth, closer to their level.
The only languages I really studied formally were German and Russian. I spoke Czech as a kid, then learned English at age 4 when my family moved to America., I studied German and Russian in school. I lived for several years in Germany as a student, and later worked in Russia for quite a few years. So, that makes up my language foundation. I speak all of them almost equally well. The rest (Spanish, Italian, French, Polish) were picked up when doing my dissertation, or living/working in environments speaking those languages.
Advice? Looking into the future, I think that 4 languages will be very important. Those are Chinese, Russian, Spanish and English. Chinese because China will one day soon become the world’s largest economy. English, because it is the accepted global standard language. Russian, because it fulfills the same role in Central Asia, that English fulfills in the rest of the world. Spanish because all of Latin America speaks it and that region is one big emerging economy.
Oh, hmm I see. Well, thanks for your insightful comments.