East Meets West: Will Americans Learn Chinese?

Yesterday, the New York Times tackled the aforementioned question in their Room For Debate blog. Essentially, the shrinking (or flatening) of the world is bringing the Far East closer and closer to the West. If you name one company that does all of its manufacturing in the United States, I'll name 5 that do all of their manufacturing abroad. Communication is increasing exponentially as an effect of symbiotic relationships between global companies in both the East and West. Many fear without the ability to communicate globally in a number of languages they will be left in the dust.

Check out the expert opinions after the break.

Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason says:

"Americans have never been particularly interested in learning other languages and are even less interested today."

Ingrid Pufahl, research associate at the Center for Applied Linguistics states:

"I believe the main reason for this disparity is that foreign languages are treated by our public education system as less important than math, science and English. In contrast, E.U. governments expect their citizens to become fluent in at least two languages plus their native tongue. This different attitude toward languages has wide-ranging implications that contribute to successful language learning abroad. Foreign languages are core academic subjects for all students, including special-needs students and vocational students. In contrast, foreign language instruction in the U.S. is frequently considered a luxury."

Marcelo and Carola Suarez-Orozco, members of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton provide frightening insight:

"Teddy Roosevelt’s chilling “We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language” have echoed through the ages. If Teddy Roosevelt turns out to be right, our kids will be left in the dust in the new global race to the top. And when the top science- and math-scoring multilingual kids from Finland, Korea and Netherlands get there they will hear the sweet sound of success in many languages."

As a college student born in the U.S., I feel the refusal to encourage foreign language education in the public school system is pathetic. It puts U.S. born students, particularly those students produced by a public education system, ten steps behind our international friends. Even first generation U.S. born students have an advantage of multi-lingual exposure through communication with parents and relatives. Furthermore, many of these already multi-lingual students pursue a third or fourth language in college.

It's a small, flat, connected world, and you only think you need to know one language? Good luck.

Grab the whole NYTimes article here.