Why is it so hard for Americans to learn foreign languages?

Question

FBI agents still lack Arabic language skills
Only 33 of 12,000 have some proficiency
By Dan Eggen
Five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none of them work in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism, according to new FBI statistics.
Counting agents who know only a handful of Arabic words -- including those who scored zero on a standard proficiency test -- just 1 percent of the FBI's 12,000 agents have any familiarity with the language, the statistics show.
The numbers reflect the FBI's continued struggle to attract employees who speak Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and other languages of the Middle East and South Asia, even as the bureau leads a fight against terrorist groups primarily centered in those parts of the world. The same challenge is facing the CIA and other agencies.

Answer 1

I dont know why you chose to point out lack of Arabic language skills... is it really is a blanket statement you want to make on languages in general or just regarding the Arabic language? The reason it's difficult for anyone to learn a language is lack of sufficient exposure to it and not learning it while still young and the mind is more open to learning languages... Come to France and you'll find just as many people who find it very hard to learn a foreign language - even a language like english which many claim is the 'easiest', which is considered international, which has already been slowly introduced to French over the centuries, and even though they logistically are in a better position to be exposed to other languages. Arabic doesnt have an alphabet even close to english, of course it would be hard for FBI personnel to learn this language in such a short timeframe.

Answer 2

Well, in general I'd say the reason Americans have more trouble than most is because America is a big country and only one of the countries it borders really speaks a different language. Whereas a European can easily go out of the country to a place that speaks a whole new language for a weekend and probably pick up a thing or two, most Americans don't have that option as the distance would be prohibitive. Also it means Americans have little reason to make the effort, and even schools often don't offer foreign language classes.

As for Middle Eastern langiages in particular, I think they are made extra difficult to learn by matters like the different alphabet.

Answer 3

Most Americans I know speak more than one language

What you are asking is really, "Why do FBI and CIA agents have difficulties learning Arabic, Urdu and Farsi?"

The reason is affective. They, as law enforcement officers, feel that only "terrorists" speak these languages and do not want to be associated with this. It also happens with border agents being unable to learn Spanish.

If a person feels that a language is not worth learning, or that people that speak that language are bad, they will never be able to speak it well.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

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Answer 6

It is not any harder or easier for Americans to learn foreign languages. What Americans don't have is the incentive to learn foreign languages when they are young and can do it easily. Why learn to speak Urdu when you live in Kansas? You will never in your life meet anyone who speaks Urdu unless you go to work for a very small range of companies that do business in Pakistan. Why learn to speak German when you live on a ranch in Wyoming? You might meet a few Spanish speakers, but you'll never hear German spoken. That is why Americans don't learn foreign languages when they are young. They are completely surrounded by English. Americans are not less capable, they just don't have the need. But in case you didn't notice, Americans still managed to win two world wars, invent the airplane, the personal computer, the internet, television, telephones, and over half of the technology that modern life can't run without.

Answer 7

We have been taught one language and our foreign language skills are a reflection of two years of high school Spanish....

Most countries mandate that students be fluent in several languages. In Europe this is very common as countries are clustered together. Students start at a young age learning foreign languages when learning is easiest. Ever heard the saying ,"The older we get the stupider we get" it's actually a scientific fact.

Arabic countries have not readily allowed westerners into their country. Their own seclusion has been in part responsible for this.

Personally I feel the American public in general view all Arab nations as a threat to our lives and think they are dangerous.

They may have problems getting through our stringent security and background check.

Answer 8

Because you or they (I don't know where are you from) don't need it, we (Spanish) learn to speak in English, because is the language more used internationally, so, if we want to commerce with US we need to speak in English, in fact time ago, children used to learn french because we use to have more economic relation with France, and nowadays people who study engineering use to study also German or Japanese for instance... US until now didn't have this need because it was the country with everyone want to make business...

Anyway, the case you talk about, I think it isn't related to be more or less able to learn a language, here only a very few people understand Arabic (or any other language) and in most cases they aren't related to government, but our governs use native speakers from those countries to make translations, so for instance, the translators used in the investigation about the terrorist acts on march 11th in Madrid, where from Arabic countries...

Answer 9

Because they are afraid that someone with "Arabic spoken" on his résumé would be a terrorist, so they never hire such people. Including the potential arabic teachers...

Edit: Elaine S is right.
Edit2: Someone else wrote: "English is the hardest language in the world. " => this made my day, I will laugh till tomorrow.

Answer 10

Our school systems do not offer foreign languages until the child is in high school (at least I wasn't) That's too late to start learning a foreign language. In Russia, for example, a student can attend a language school from the beginning and learn other languages from a childhood age.