Learning language important

As Americans, most of us are fortunate that English comes to us as a first language. We’re… As Americans, most of us are fortunate that English comes to us as a first language. We’re lucky not to experience difficulty understanding and speaking what is quickly becoming the world’s “universal” tongue. But by no means does that put us totally off the hook. We still have every obligation to learn foreign languages as Europeans or Asians might have to learn English – and what’s more, there’s no reason we shouldn’t want to become multilingual.

For reasons never fully understood by me, my high school required me to pass four years of English and four years of math, three years of social studies (government, psychology and the like), three years of science – and just two years of a foreign language. Even here at Pittsburgh, on a university level, we’re exempt from foreign language so long as we’ve taken three years of it previously.

But it’s my Spanish and French I’ve really been able to use in daily life, not my ability to name the parts of a nucleus.

Admittedly, I’m biased. Foreign languages are my best subjects and I am considering a major in them. But being able to use it is exactly why I always worked hard. I knew I had to if I was going to be an upstanding global citizen.

Being able to speak comfortably in foreign languages has greater rewards than an A on my transcript. It allows me to connect with entire cultures that I otherwise might never have been able to fully appreciate. How much of a different civilization or society can one ever fully absorb with all slang and idiomatic expressions translated?

Knowing foreign languages also makes it possible to travel without a tour guide. Studying abroad last summer, I conversed almost daily with Parisians in restaurants and parks. I was grateful that I wasn’t limited to speaking with those who had studied English. Moreover, because French came quite easily to them, I learned what my new friends truly felt – not just what they knew how to say.

Being able to understand foreign languages is a handy tool in my own homeland, too. The book and gift shop I once worked in received customers with a multitude of backgrounds, and I was glad I could sometimes speak to them in the language with which they were most at ease. And once I even picked up on a young woman telling her friend that our jewelry was “not really silver,” despite it saying so on the label.

True, foreign language is learned largely through memorization and can be tedious to learn. Sentence structures appear awkward when they’re so unlike the ones we’re used to. And stiffly reciting phrases such as “I will bicycle to work” can seem lame and uncool. But those excuses are never going to break language barriers.

As adults, it’s our job to take the initiative. This means taking a foreign language and sticking with it long enough to master it. We need to recognize for ourselves the importance of becoming truly multilingual. You are not, unfortunately, fluent in Italian by the time you’ve passed level 0002.

While a semester or two alone does provide enough information to keep you alive in other cultures – not an unworthy goal -it also limits you to conversations on subjects you bring up. And if you can’t talk to a speaker of another language about their issues, too, your ability to help and identify with them is seriously diminished. Outside the walls of the University of Pittsburgh, knowing a foreign language is about being able to communicate globally; being able to run business meetings; being able to teach or translate.

Think of the issue economically. The more proficient you are in foreign languages, the more in demand you are in the workplace and the higher your paycheck from a potential boss to hire and keep you. Companies need their employees to speak more languages than just English – especially major, multinational companies like Google and Pepsi that can afford to dole out the big bucks. These employers especially need employees to speak fluently enough to use that knowledge on an adult, business-savvy level. Most likely, you will not be asked to speak about your favorite classes and colors.

You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it again, but you won’t stop feeling guilty for not listening until you enroll in French. Or Spanish. Or Hebrew. Or Japanese. So take foreign language. Take it, and excel in it.

As college students, we finally have the ability to reason and to pick our courses without so much as parental permission. Recognize the desperate need of more fluent foreign language speakers in our world. Then become one.

Uniting the world since 1988. Email Carolyn at ceg36@pitt.edu .