English is my first, and only, language. I took Spanish in high school, my junior and senior year. My Spanish II teacher was hardcore. She spoke English, Spanish and French. She taught all of these too, even to the AP level. And her classes were hard. The homework was hard, the tests were hard, remembering the “yo, tu, usted, nosotros” forms were hard. I was not the only one that saw this either. Every pop quiz came with protests from my classmates and groans followed behind every homework assignment she wrote on the board.
Finally, she was sick of our complaining. She sat down on a desk in front of the class and told us, “This is not hard. You are making it hard. English, the language you guys speak is hard.” She explained to us that Spanish, along with many other foreign languages, has a set list of rules. For the most part verbs end the same way based on the tense and who you’re talking about. Once you get the rules down (like in math) the only things that change are the words (like the numbers of a problem). English however, has all sorts of crazy rules. “I before E except after C” and there are three different meanings for the words “there, their, and they’re”. She told us that English is one of the hardest languages to learn.
Which gave us all some perspective on how non-native speakers feel when they come to this country - a country where we primarily speak English. I feel that often they’re looked down upon. Often people ask, “Why can’t they just learn English? They’ve come to OUR country, they should learn OUR language.” While this would probably make life a little easier, I find it ridiculous that in a country that has no official language and is considered to be the melting pot of countries that we would say this.
There is no doubting that English has become a very globalized and important language. According to an essay by Mauro E. Mujica (pg. 168 in EL), 66,000 people from 50 different countries were asked if they thought that you needed to know English in order to be successful. Ninety percent or more of the people surveyed in countries like India, China, and Japan, answered yes. Which comes at no surprise considering that America is known as a superpower in terms of countries.
People come here for a better chance at life. But is the better chance at life really worth the risk of losing your language simply to conform? Is it worth not being able to read signs posted in your workplace or being able to properly communicate with doctors when your health is in trouble? Imagine if you have a severe allergy to something and you go off to visit Japan. Except you can’t read the label on the packaging because it isn’t in your language. Now you’ve eaten it and broken out in hives and are getting sicker and sicker. And what does the rest of the country say? "Oh, you should have learned Japanese.”
Having English be such a prominent language has to be difficult for non-speakers. I think it's something we as speakers don't really think about. There's such an expectation for everyone to know what we're saying that at times we don't think to accommodate them and at other times it is just too difficult to accommodate them. I feel like other cultures are trying to be more English proficient but there's no denying it - English is a difficult language to learn.
It is so true that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. Your Spanish teacher was a very wise lady. English is a necessary language to be successful in the world, but so many people can't learn it simply because it doesn't make any sense. I loved your allergy example. I've had problems like that before.
ReplyDeleteI do feel that if you are going to travel to a place, you should have a small understanding of the language though, and the same if you plan on going to live in a new place. You should at least understand enough to be able to function in society. I know that many people will disagree with me, but I still feel that we should respect other countries languages and cultures, and that we demand the same respect for our language. While there isn't a national language for the U.S., it still is considered an English speaking country.
And while learning another language is very difficult, one of the fastest ways to gain understanding of the language is immersion, and by living in an English speaking surrounding, it is not hard to gain basic control of a language.
You bring up some good points, and this was an interesting post to read!
-Alley
I too speak only English, and I do agree that English is hard, even as a native. We even take English classes ourselves, natives, to better our opportunities, right? I do agree it is hard, and more that it is ever changing, so it would be difficult for nonnative’s to adapt to our English language, but it is extremely important. Just because it’s hard is no excuse not to do the best you can to achieve learning the rules. I’m not sure if you have made your opinion clear in your statement but I do feel that if you are going to live in a primarily English spoken land, you should know English. You state that immigrants come for a better life, but how are they going to achieve that by not being a part of society. How are they going to benefit the society, the economy without being an active member of the English speaking majority? I have no problem with immigration if they are here to better themselves, and they adapt to contribute to a better society. It’s the people that come over to the states and have an ethnocentric attitude that they can have a better environment, yet don’t give anything back to the society that gives them those opportunities. They don’t learn the language, don’t educate themselves, and overall, don’t help advance in our society. In Julia Ortiz Cofer’s essay, “He May Be Bilingual,” she states that she chooses the word adapt rather than assimilate because she didn’t want to lose her culture, she just wanted to add to it and because she did that she is a role model to young Latino students. I don’t think we want immigrants to lose their cultural identity, we just want them to add and adapt to America’s language and, maybe, ideologies. In doing this they are more prone to teach America about other cultures and ways of living; to educate the globalized America we depend on other cultures to teach us. You wouldn’t go to Japan without learning the basics of Japanese, America and English is no different, even though it is a hard language.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that English is a difficult language to learn. My mother has been here for over thirty somewhat years and she still has problems with English grammar. I mean think about it, English is not a language of its own, but rather a compilation various languages mixed together. Many of the words we use today originate from Greek, Latin, and Arabic languages. It’s hard for a person who comes from a different country to try and learn a language that uses familiar words in different contexts. For example the word confetti in English means tiny pieces of colored paper used at celebrations, but in Italian, confetti means sugar coated almonds. If a person were to come from Italy and an American asks this person to bring confetti to the party, they are obviously going to bring what they know is confetti.
ReplyDeleteBecause we grew up speaking English, we don’t think about English etymology very often. We are so accustomed to using English language in what we think is genuinely from English origin. Of course English is a challenge, but we are lucky enough to have learned it since birth or close to it. I only wish that English speakers could learn more languages as they grow up in order to broaden their minds through the power they can yield from other languages.