5 ms·

It's not much of a perceived advantage to study a 2nd language as an American, because no matter where you go there's probably someone who speaks English, and c

It's not much of a perceived advantage to study a 2nd language as an American, because no matter where you go there's probably someone who speaks English, and chances are that wherever you go few if any speak the 2nd language that you studied as a kid. There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. There's large payoff for people from non-English speaking countries to study English; it must be true or perceived as such, because it's such a widespread practice. We already know English. I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America. It might also encourage us to have closer relations with Central and South America. I doubt it will happen. Note: I understand there are many benefits to studying any 2nd language.

wallflower 17y ago
> There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. If you are only looking at economic payoff. I've been to countries/cultures (Latin America) where I feel that if you don't have a grasp of the language - you can only be a tourist. Reusing cliches but not being able to speak a language - you lack the passport to truly immerse yourself - you'll only be a tourist if you can't speak (to a point) the language. I'm really looking for an app that will find Spanish texts for me to read that have words that I don't already know (e.g. smart enough to learn what your working vocabulary set is). Since I'm starting out - almost every text will have words I don't know. Anyone know of an app geared towards reading and vocabulary building (and possibly reading material discovery)? Or do we have to build one (it will be a little harder because of the conjugations, m/f variants of words)
- nfnaaron 17y ago
  I don't have an app, but here's a book that I've been liking: Easy Spanish Reader: http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-William-Tardy/dp/0071428062 http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-William-Tardy/dp/0... same, with CD: http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-CD-ROM-Three-Part/dp/0071603387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264097113&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-CD-ROM-Three-Part/... It's for beginners. You just read, simple stories. Some words are defined in the margins, some in the glossary, and some you just get from context. I like it a lot.
timwiseman 17y ago
I think learning a second language in school has enough ancillary benefits to make it mandatory, but there is no language other than English that is so widespread to make that particular langauage dominant. I think that within the limits of the resources, schools should try to offer a few choices and let the students choose. Sometimes a language will appeal to a student because something they are interested in is heavily tied to that language. A serious student of judo would likely benefit from speaking Japanesse if only to be able to talk with other practitioners. A serious student of Go may be interested a language from a country where that is common such as Japanese or Korean, etc. On the other hand, someone interested in philosophy is likely to benefit from French more than most other languages. If we absolutely had to pick one, I would focus on Mandarin Chinese. China is a rapidly rising power that is becoming ever more important in the international scene and houses a huge percentage of the world population.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  >learning a second language in school has enough ancillary benefits to make it mandatory Would you include in this those who can't use a first language to any reasonable degree. Or those who already have the main language of the country (English say) as their second language? I'm generally against mandatory subjects in education as it tends not to reflect the vast differences in experience and background, motivation and ability of the students.
  - timwiseman 17y ago
    I'm generally against mandatory subjects in education as it tends not to reflect the vast differences in experience and background, motivation and ability of the students. At a higher education level (say College on up) I would be strongly inclined to agree with you. Give the students freedom and they will make the right choices for themselves, and they will be the only ones to live with it if they don't. At the basic education level (high school and below), this is precisely when society is teaching its children what it needs to continue its culture. Most students at this age do not have the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about what they should learn, and moreover society has a vested interest in ensuring that its young people meet certain minimums. My argument is that a second language should be one of those minimums, but that the choice of which language should be given (within resource limits) to the student or their family. To answer your direct questions though, someone who cannot use a first language to any reasonable degree either has a learning disability or has been failed by the education system. In that second case, the education system has failed them and should take extraordinary measures to correct that without lowering the standards (my argument is that a second language should be part of those standards). And for people who are already fluent in a second language, they have already exceeded that requirement.
theycallmemorty 17y ago
Mono-lingual Canadian here with a question for both of you: What do adolescents in your countries think of learning english? Most anglophone Canadians start learning french in grade 4, unless their parents put them in an immersion program at a younger age. In Ontario we were required to take French until grade 9 and after that the VAST majority of us stopped because we hated it. Is it like that with English in other parts of the world? Or is English enough of a prestige language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestige_%28sociolinguistics%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestige_%28sociolinguistics%29) that young people enjoy learning it?
- ique 17y ago
  In Sweden I wouldn't say that kids enjoy learning it, but everyone sees it as absolutely necessary. It's also used every day because all music, all TV-shows (except some really bad Swedish shows) and all movies are in English. Since we start so early and never stop until we're 18, everyone just kind of accepts it as something part of life and by the time you're 18 you're perfectly fluent.
- fauigerzigerk 17y ago
  I think it's both at the same time. It's something they thrust down your throat in school from an early age and it is hated accordingly. But contrary to some of the other subjects, school is not the only place in which you're confronted with english. There's also games, music, movies, the web, talking to people from other countries and later science. So I think necessity and inevitability has replaced prestige as the dominant motivation over the past 15 or 20 years or so.
- henrikschroder 17y ago
  It's definitely a prestige language in Scandinavia, remember that most of our pop culture is in English.
- jrgnsd 17y ago
  In South Africa we have 11, yes, eleven, official languages, with English being one of them. It's easy for most people who's mother tongue is not English to learn it, as it's everywhere - government, media, advertisements, entertainment, you name it. So it's a necesity, not a status symbol. It's also interesting to note that English kids generally struggle to pick up a second language, even if they live in a community that speaks another language, just because English is so pervasive, and there's no need for them to pick up a second language. This despite the fact that you have three languages at school, at least up to grade 9.
warfangle 17y ago
I'm betting this is going to flip around in the next eighty years or so, and not towards Spanish. If China's economy doesn't crash and burn (and, if it does, if it does not fail to rise again from the ashes like ours did after the Great Depression), Chinese is likely to become an important trade language. It's a difficult language, but then again - for different reasons - so is English. I'm placing my bets that within a century, there will be two primary trade languages (Chinese, probably Mandarin but also likely Cantonese), and English. And perhaps, a century or so after that, simply a pidgin of the two. The way global communications is bringing people closer cognitively will effectively starve out other languages. People will still speak them - likely limited to their local social groups (family, friends, et cetera), but fall to a global trade language (pidgin of English+Chinese) for nearly every other encounter. In some ways, this may be extremely interesting from a linguistics standpoint: Everyone will speak a common language, but there will be more and more language-isolates, as individual social circles become more insulated from each other by the global trade language.
- eru 17y ago
  Interesting. But I doubt it will be that simple. Even if the Chinese will overshadow everything else in a few years, English will stay the dominant language in the western world. Latin limped on far over thousand years after the fall of its empire.
  - sirdavidof 17y ago
    Yes, but French is arguably fading much more quickly. It's easy to overlook where the words lingua franca originally came from.
    - eru 17y ago
      Not from French. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca) I can't say much about French. I do know that German is alive and kicking.
- nfnaaron 17y ago
lionhearted 17y ago
> There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. Good point - never thought of it like that. > I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America. Really? I'd say going the opposite would have potentially more advantages. Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, Japanese, or Korean - something where you'd be one of the relatively few Americans bilingual in both languages and the country isn't fully bilingual in English speakers seems like it'd be more valuable than something in which quite a few Americans are fluent and bilingual.
- bugs 17y ago
  Spanish would be of much more use to Americans because there are so many Spanish speakers in America especially in states near the border. I live in a southern state and many conversations here interchange Spanish and English words where best fit when speaking to other bilinguals
  - furyg3 17y ago
    Not to mention it would completely reverse the role of immigrant children in the classrooms. A decade ago (maybe still) there was a debate in California: what's the best way to educate Spanish-speaking kids? Do we start immersing them in English right away? or do we start off in Spanish, and slowly transition them to English? Meanwhile, I was in High School being taught how important it is to learn a 2nd language, of which the preferred selection is Spanish. High School, especially Jr/Sr years, has got to be one of the worst times to learn a language... The answer is obvious: (where possible) teach both languages to both kids right from the get-go, which would also have some equalization effect in the schools.
- earl 17y ago
  I used to think similarly, but I've been mostly unable to find any real advantages to fluency in difficult foreign languages. NB: I don't want to work for the government or doing outsourcing, the two obvious places to use foreign language skills. So, this is at least partly my own desires, but I think my point hold: I see very slim returns to the time spent learning another language to fluency. Far better to spend that 2-4 thousand hours on programming, math, etc.
davidw 17y ago
I think it's more a lack of opportunity to utilize a second language. If you spend any length of time somewhere where, yes, you can sort of get by with English, but it's not the native language, you really start to want to learn more. In the US, your opportunities are quite limited... Mexico or Quebec are your only major options, and that's a lot of travel for many people. From Padova where I am, on the other hand, I can be in Austria in 4 hours' driving time, Slovenia in 2 hours, Croatia in about 3, or on the other side, France or Switzerland in a bit more than half a day's drive.
- oscardelben 17y ago
  The opportunity will come after you've learnt the language. Honestly I live in Italy, and I wish they had spent more time teaching english to me. It's a shame that in north europe most people are fluent in english while here only a few are.

wallflower 17y ago

> There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. If you are only looking at economic payoff. I've been to countries/cultures (Latin America) where I feel that if you don't have a grasp of the language - you can only be a tourist. Reusing cliches but not being able to speak a language - you lack the passport to truly immerse yourself - you'll only be a tourist if you can't speak (to a point) the language. I'm really looking for an app that will find Spanish texts for me to read that have words that I don't already know (e.g. smart enough to learn what your working vocabulary set is). Since I'm starting out - almost every text will have words I don't know. Anyone know of an app geared towards reading and vocabulary building (and possibly reading material discovery)? Or do we have to build one (it will be a little harder because of the conjugations, m/f variants of words)

nfnaaron 17y ago
I don't have an app, but here's a book that I've been liking: Easy Spanish Reader: http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-William-Tardy/dp/0071428062 http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-William-Tardy/dp/0... same, with CD: http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-CD-ROM-Three-Part/dp/0071603387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264097113&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Spanish-Reader-CD-ROM-Three-Part/... It's for beginners. You just read, simple stories. Some words are defined in the margins, some in the glossary, and some you just get from context. I like it a lot.

timwiseman 17y ago

I think learning a second language in school has enough ancillary benefits to make it mandatory, but there is no language other than English that is so widespread to make that particular langauage dominant. I think that within the limits of the resources, schools should try to offer a few choices and let the students choose. Sometimes a language will appeal to a student because something they are interested in is heavily tied to that language. A serious student of judo would likely benefit from speaking Japanesse if only to be able to talk with other practitioners. A serious student of Go may be interested a language from a country where that is common such as Japanese or Korean, etc. On the other hand, someone interested in philosophy is likely to benefit from French more than most other languages. If we absolutely had to pick one, I would focus on Mandarin Chinese. China is a rapidly rising power that is becoming ever more important in the international scene and houses a huge percentage of the world population.

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
>learning a second language in school has enough ancillary benefits to make it mandatory Would you include in this those who can't use a first language to any reasonable degree. Or those who already have the main language of the country (English say) as their second language? I'm generally against mandatory subjects in education as it tends not to reflect the vast differences in experience and background, motivation and ability of the students.
- timwiseman 17y ago
  I'm generally against mandatory subjects in education as it tends not to reflect the vast differences in experience and background, motivation and ability of the students. At a higher education level (say College on up) I would be strongly inclined to agree with you. Give the students freedom and they will make the right choices for themselves, and they will be the only ones to live with it if they don't. At the basic education level (high school and below), this is precisely when society is teaching its children what it needs to continue its culture. Most students at this age do not have the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about what they should learn, and moreover society has a vested interest in ensuring that its young people meet certain minimums. My argument is that a second language should be one of those minimums, but that the choice of which language should be given (within resource limits) to the student or their family. To answer your direct questions though, someone who cannot use a first language to any reasonable degree either has a learning disability or has been failed by the education system. In that second case, the education system has failed them and should take extraordinary measures to correct that without lowering the standards (my argument is that a second language should be part of those standards). And for people who are already fluent in a second language, they have already exceeded that requirement.

theycallmemorty 17y ago

Mono-lingual Canadian here with a question for both of you: What do adolescents in your countries think of learning english? Most anglophone Canadians start learning french in grade 4, unless their parents put them in an immersion program at a younger age. In Ontario we were required to take French until grade 9 and after that the VAST majority of us stopped because we hated it. Is it like that with English in other parts of the world? Or is English enough of a prestige language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestige_%28sociolinguistics%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestige_%28sociolinguistics%29) that young people enjoy learning it?

ique 17y ago
In Sweden I wouldn't say that kids enjoy learning it, but everyone sees it as absolutely necessary. It's also used every day because all music, all TV-shows (except some really bad Swedish shows) and all movies are in English. Since we start so early and never stop until we're 18, everyone just kind of accepts it as something part of life and by the time you're 18 you're perfectly fluent.
fauigerzigerk 17y ago
I think it's both at the same time. It's something they thrust down your throat in school from an early age and it is hated accordingly. But contrary to some of the other subjects, school is not the only place in which you're confronted with english. There's also games, music, movies, the web, talking to people from other countries and later science. So I think necessity and inevitability has replaced prestige as the dominant motivation over the past 15 or 20 years or so.
henrikschroder 17y ago
It's definitely a prestige language in Scandinavia, remember that most of our pop culture is in English.
jrgnsd 17y ago
In South Africa we have 11, yes, eleven, official languages, with English being one of them. It's easy for most people who's mother tongue is not English to learn it, as it's everywhere - government, media, advertisements, entertainment, you name it. So it's a necesity, not a status symbol. It's also interesting to note that English kids generally struggle to pick up a second language, even if they live in a community that speaks another language, just because English is so pervasive, and there's no need for them to pick up a second language. This despite the fact that you have three languages at school, at least up to grade 9.

warfangle 17y ago

I'm betting this is going to flip around in the next eighty years or so, and not towards Spanish. If China's economy doesn't crash and burn (and, if it does, if it does not fail to rise again from the ashes like ours did after the Great Depression), Chinese is likely to become an important trade language. It's a difficult language, but then again - for different reasons - so is English. I'm placing my bets that within a century, there will be two primary trade languages (Chinese, probably Mandarin but also likely Cantonese), and English. And perhaps, a century or so after that, simply a pidgin of the two. The way global communications is bringing people closer cognitively will effectively starve out other languages. People will still speak them - likely limited to their local social groups (family, friends, et cetera), but fall to a global trade language (pidgin of English+Chinese) for nearly every other encounter. In some ways, this may be extremely interesting from a linguistics standpoint: Everyone will speak a common language, but there will be more and more language-isolates, as individual social circles become more insulated from each other by the global trade language.

eru 17y ago
Interesting. But I doubt it will be that simple. Even if the Chinese will overshadow everything else in a few years, English will stay the dominant language in the western world. Latin limped on far over thousand years after the fall of its empire.
- sirdavidof 17y ago
  Yes, but French is arguably fading much more quickly. It's easy to overlook where the words lingua franca originally came from.
  - eru 17y ago
    Not from French. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca) I can't say much about French. I do know that German is alive and kicking.
nfnaaron 17y ago

lionhearted 17y ago

> There's small payoff for an American to study a 2nd language. Good point - never thought of it like that. > I'd like to see Spanish mandatory or commonly studied to fluency, given the demographic changes in America. Really? I'd say going the opposite would have potentially more advantages. Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, Japanese, or Korean - something where you'd be one of the relatively few Americans bilingual in both languages and the country isn't fully bilingual in English speakers seems like it'd be more valuable than something in which quite a few Americans are fluent and bilingual.

bugs 17y ago
Spanish would be of much more use to Americans because there are so many Spanish speakers in America especially in states near the border. I live in a southern state and many conversations here interchange Spanish and English words where best fit when speaking to other bilinguals
- furyg3 17y ago
  Not to mention it would completely reverse the role of immigrant children in the classrooms. A decade ago (maybe still) there was a debate in California: what's the best way to educate Spanish-speaking kids? Do we start immersing them in English right away? or do we start off in Spanish, and slowly transition them to English? Meanwhile, I was in High School being taught how important it is to learn a 2nd language, of which the preferred selection is Spanish. High School, especially Jr/Sr years, has got to be one of the worst times to learn a language... The answer is obvious: (where possible) teach both languages to both kids right from the get-go, which would also have some equalization effect in the schools.
earl 17y ago
I used to think similarly, but I've been mostly unable to find any real advantages to fluency in difficult foreign languages. NB: I don't want to work for the government or doing outsourcing, the two obvious places to use foreign language skills. So, this is at least partly my own desires, but I think my point hold: I see very slim returns to the time spent learning another language to fluency. Far better to spend that 2-4 thousand hours on programming, math, etc.

davidw 17y ago

I think it's more a lack of opportunity to utilize a second language. If you spend any length of time somewhere where, yes, you can sort of get by with English, but it's not the native language, you really start to want to learn more. In the US, your opportunities are quite limited... Mexico or Quebec are your only major options, and that's a lot of travel for many people. From Padova where I am, on the other hand, I can be in Austria in 4 hours' driving time, Slovenia in 2 hours, Croatia in about 3, or on the other side, France or Switzerland in a bit more than half a day's drive.

oscardelben 17y ago
The opportunity will come after you've learnt the language. Honestly I live in Italy, and I wish they had spent more time teaching english to me. It's a shame that in north europe most people are fluent in english while here only a few are.