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I hope this article will help students appreciate why learning languages is so helpful, especially amongst English speakers. The more I experience languages, the more I love them and I hope I can pass some of my enthusiasm onto my students.
On our island, we are rather shielded and there seems to be no need to understand any speech other than English but we are, in fact, surrounded by other languages. They are spoken by the people around us, written as information or instructions on the packets of things we buy or they are borrowed and filter into English, causing our speech to change daily.
The European Union is partly the cause of all this. There are now twenty-seven countries within the Union and the majority speak a different language from their neighbour. So there have to be a few translations in the hope that purchasers will be able to understand.
Although the use of English is spreading throughout the world, thanks mainly to the expertise of the media, the modern world is also bringing many other languages closer to us. You will find that there are many benefits of learning another language.
One is to understand one’s own language better; for instance we can understand fatigued in English if we know the French fatigué means tired, we can understand tiffin if we know that it comes from an Indian language word meaning to sip.
Another is to obtain better employment. These days there is so much interaction between countries, especially in commercial business, that an employer will prefer a candidate with more than one language.
You can understand the way your own language is made up better, as learning another exposes the learner to the ins and outs of grammar.
One benefit is that it makes you better able to understand other linked languages. Recently I went to Norway for the first time, knowing none of the language, and was able to understand some notices and signposts because of my knowledge of German (it is a Northern Germanic language) and of some Scottish words. The Vikings must have taken some Old Norse words to Scotland in the 8th century. At university, when I studied German in a multilingual class, I noticed a Spanish girl and an Italian boy having a conversation together using their own languages!
Culture - one of the greatest benefits of learning a language is that the student is not merely exposed to the language but to many aspects of the culture. A foreign language does not have words for a food if that food is not eaten there or for an event in another country if it does not experience it. So ‘churros’ are an anomaly to English speaking students of Spanish and ‘fish & chips’ are not available in special fish & chip shops in Germany. The celebrations of La Guelaguetza in Mexico have no word in English. German speaking students learn that there is a different educational system in England so the terms don’t match up. An English speaker finds that in France the main meal is traditionally in the middle of the day. Spain has a hotter climate, so many people will have a siesta in the afternoon and socialise late into the evening.
Religions are a further influence on culture and intertwined with it. Indeed, many words that stem from them are vital for a foreign speaker in the country where the language is spoken. A good example is the greeting ‘Salaam aleikum’ in an Arabic speaking country or one where Islam is the religion. It is important to recognise the greeting and know how to respond. Even though a visitor has not learnt the language, it is important to learn some basics before going to a country. I have often heard it said how the native speakers appreciate it if a visitor makes the effort to speak their language.
Learning a language reveals a wealth of historical events through the ages, for instance, the overrunning of France by soldiers in the early AD centuries causing cheval, the French word for horse to come from the Roman soldiers’ word instead of the upper class Latin word equus. When French kings ruled England in the Middle Ages they brought the French words for cow, pig and sheep into the English language as beef, pork and mutton and sealed that part of history. Languages such as Welsh, Gaelic & Breton were almost lost when their use was repressed as they were deemed politically to be the language of the ‘common people’.
Geography also comes to the fore. For example, countries that have more experience of tidal waves tend to give their language’s name to other languages. Hence English speakers are as familiar with the term tsunami as tidal wave.
Children are fortunate. They are born with the capability of copying any sound they hear around them. They can learn any language easily. They even differentiate between languages and use the one that is appropriate for the person to whom they are talking. Recently, I heard two little Polish-speaking children speaking Polish to each other but their mother described how her children speak in English to English-speaking relatives.
This article has hopefully changed the mind of those who see language as a cruel and unnecessary, isolated, academic exercise. English speakers as a whole are not inclined to add to their vocabulary. However, there are advantages in doing this and if we do it in the same way as children, in other words, ‘diving in at the deep end’, living amongst those who speak the language if possible, enjoying our discoveries and learning to speak what we hear, we will find it easier than we had at first expected.
