The first foreign language course in college

JHS
Wed, 28 May 2008 14:29:44 +0000

In response to lkf725’s issue from yesterday:

Americans are the only people in the world who could possibly ask the question “Why are foreign languages required?” For everyone else, having some degree of proficiency in something other than their native language is an essential component of even the most basic education. (Even Brits, who would seem to be exempt, too, really have to be able to function in other European languages in order to keep their educational and employment options open. Maybe some ambitious native Mandarin or Arabic speakers could get by without learning another language, but I doubt many do.)

In addition to all the utilitarian “global economy” arguments (for which Latin won’t do a whole lot), I think there is high moral value in the experience of learning another system of expression, living with the reality that the mode of expression and communication that’s most familiar to you is not the only mode available, and understanding that you CAN learn another language.

I also think that “fluency” is tremendously overrated. I am pretty good at learning languages, but I don’t have a great ear. It would take enormous effort for me to learn to speak (and write) “fluently” in another language, and enormous effort to maintain that fluency. Once upon a time I was probably fluent in Spanish, but I am fairly awkward speaking it today, and I can write well in it only with difficulty. (And phonetically Spanish is extraordinarily easy – it has many fewer sounds in it than English, and if you know how a word is spelled you know how it is pronounced.) But I get a lot of personal pleasure and enrichment – and some business advantage, at times – out of my Spanish . . . and my French, Italian, and Catalan which are nowhere near as good as my Spanish. At least for Western languages, it doesn’t take anywhere near two years of college study to get good comprehension. I never studied any language in college, other than taking literature courses. Most universities offer one-semester reading comprehension courses for grad students; that, plus travel and practice, is plenty to create a solid base.