Why Americans are not interested in learning more languages?

Question

Like the rest of the world? who can speak 3 - 4 languages?

Answer 1

They do it because of tourism or trying to get advanced in their field. English is a major language right not. Its required for all airports to speak it. In India its probably taught more than Hindi is.

Americans are taught lousy languages for the most part because the teachers are so behind. French and Spanish are the main languages taught. Spanish at least makes some sense because of the growing spanish speaking population (though english should be national language). French though is the former language of education and really serves no purpose for learning.

They ought to teach the most important languages of the economic world. Japanese for sure (since kids are so into anime and manga and such I think this would give alot of incentive). I tried to learn it and couldn't find anyone who taught it. There are others as well.

School system in all is leaving the kids behind.

And for the record I speak English, Hebrew, passable french, cruddy german, and learning Tamil.

Answer 2

Good question! I think that's because you can go anywhere in the world, and have people speak English. That doesn't happen with the rest of the languages. However, learning a different language not only opens many many doors, it's also an adventure!!

Answer 3

Only 18% of Americans own passports and bother to travel outside of the US. This compares with 41% of Canadians. I doubt that size of the country, distance from other cultures and the use of English as a global language explains this enormous discrepancy. Both countries would have similar experiences otherwise. I think a big part of it is the USA's educational and political system that promotes insularity.


Incidentally, judging from the grammar and spelling on Yahoo Answers, Americans could do with a bit more input into their English too! ;-)

Answer 4

We're a world superpower politically and economically, so people tend to rush to speak our language in order to interact with us. Because of that, we've gotten a little lazy. I know that if anyone were to so much as mention a language other than our own becoming the "international language", we'd be up in arms, whereas in Germany they generally think that it's a good thing for English to be the international language.

I personally love learning foreign languages.

Answer 5

Consider the distances in this country. Much of Europe would fit in Texas. It's not that Americans aren't exposed to Foreign languages as much as it is the case that they rarely get to practice or actually use them. And book learning a language is very different from having the opportunity to hear it spoken by native speakers.

I still recall my first day in Germany after nearly 8 years of German class and I could barely communicate. 4 months later, I was doing great and now 20 years later I am back to square one.

You have to use it or you do lose it.

Answer 6

We live in a very, very large country and so most of us grew up with an underlying idea that we are it. We have a poor sense of othernesss. In Europe you can drive for a matter of hours in be in a different country listening to a different language. You'll notice there are more bilingual people in Texas than anywhere else- canada speaks english(mostly).

Answer 7

The intellectual demands of learning another language are high, and American school systems don't include it as part of their cirriculum at even near an early enough age for anywhere near enough time with anywhere near enough rigor in order for the country to be truly bilingual. The only way we'll get there is as we are now, being forced to acquire Spanish in order to cope with the second language's flood into our country. We don't share borders even near close enough with other countries or have nearly enough people of other nationalities who don't already know English coming into America for the demand to be greater.

Answer 8

I think may be because they were never exposed to any other language than english, but now they are learning spanish, french etc

Answer 9

many school courses and programs (not all of course) are a waste of time. i took spanish for 6 years in elementary school and had a different teacher every year, each of which had repeated only what we learned the previous year and nothing more. now im in high school and decided to take french and my teacher is excellent. i will go one to french 2, and hopefully learn something new.

Answer 10

Because we are the lazest country and feel that people who can't speak english are stupid because we are sellf centered and arrognant and that is why we are so disliked in other countries. I don't hate Americans I am one I am just saying that's what I think.