So what's the point of learning a foreign language?

[Hikin' Mama]

I want to learn Spanish, because we have a large Hispanic population in our area, and I want to be able to communicate. I am going to take Spanish at the community college with my middle child, who I homeschool, in a couple years. My oldest son (in ps) has taken Spanish 1 and 2, and is taking Spanish 3 next year. I think it is valuable to have the ability to communicate with the people with whom we will be interacting.

 

I learned German in college, and while I haven't used it at all, I think it helped reinforce my English grammar.

 

Kim

[Lady Katherine]

Did it do us any good at all? No. First, we didn't learn enough to become fluent. Second, and most importantly, if we had, we would not have had anyone to talk with in those languages.

 

We live in the U.S. It's not like living in Europe where there are so many different languages spoken. Everyone here speaks English or, generally speaking, needs to learn it if they are going to make the U.S. their home, IMO.

RC

 

Yes, but around here, as in much of the Southwest, the culture is practically bilingual. I frequently encounter situations that would be MUCH easier if I were fluent in Spanish. After four years of high school and college Spanish, I can understand a good bit, but if I have to speak it, I usually come up short.

[Rosie_0801]

It gives an insight into how other people think, different ways of viewing the world, the idea that there are other ways of viewing the world! It is only when we study other people (language is part of that, and a useful gateway) that our assumptions and the things we take for granted are thrown up where we can see. It starts with "these people are weird!" and leads to "who'd have thought it was necessary to have so many different words to describe snow," and "does it actually make any difference if the coffee is served in a glass or a mug? Well, not to me, but it must to the Italians or they wouldn't have those different words. I must ask the lady at the greengrocer about it." Or "wow, I always thought emotions were universal! Do we lack the word in our language because we don't feel that emotion, or do we not feel that emotion because we don't have a word for it?"

The things that surprise us about other people are big neon signs saying "you take it for granted that everyone does it your way!!!!" It makes you stop and wonder if other people's language has a better word to describe something than your language, if other people's political system works better, if someone else's ideas of kinship make more sense than yours.

Etc...

Rosie- bilingual, and very much enjoyed anthropology and her cross cultural communication linguistics class :)

[pmegan]

My daughter holds dual citizenship with the EU, which means that when she grows up she will be able to live and work anywhere in the US or Europe. I'd like to give her the foundation of at least two European languages over the course of her education (French and German, ideally). I hope that she becomes fluent in at least one of them.

 

I know that we're not the norm. But I do think that we live in an increasinly global economy, where knowledge of another language, while maybe not essential, is important. Although English is the linga franca of the world right now, an American is VERY respected if he can at least make an effort in the language of the country that he's doing business in. Americans have the reputation of being so insular and knowing only one language, so my experience is that if an American can so much as read a menu in a foreign language, it leaves a very good impression!

 

There is also lots of research showing that the brains of children who know more than one language work in a slightly different way, that their logic skills are improved, that they are more likely to be fluent, and that they are more easily able to "pick up" different languages (even those entierly unrelated to the ones they know) more easily. So if my daughter is fluent in French at a young age, if she decides to learn Chinese when she is 30 she will supposedly have a much easier time of it than if I, with my pathetic high school french that I don't remember, decided to learn Chinese.

 

FWIW, although WTM is really into Latin as a SAT vocab builder, I'm dubious about that claim. It's a pretty popular claim, that I've heard many places... but I'm honestly not really convinced. I still think it's a useful language to know for its own sake... but that is not why we are doing it.