why should our childre have to learn another lanuage? we are americans?

Answer 1

You are absolutely right. Why should any of us learn another language? We are Americans, we don't need to know any other language other than English. Heck, we don't even need to know about any other country other than our own. What good does knowing about other countries, their languages, their ideas, do for America?

Who cares what people in Saudi Arabia think about us? They have never had an affect on us. Back in the 30's and 40's, who cared about what the people in Japan thought about us? They were too far away to make a difference in our lives. What does some country half-way around the world have to do with us; what does the world have to do with us?

*tongue quite firmly in cheek, for those who cannot read between the lines*

Answer 2

well, if you mean why should they have to learn Spanish, I think it's good and educational to get some basics of the language. However this doesn't mean that the Spanish-speaking people can just kick back and relax and not learn the main language of the country they are living in, if you move here you should plan to at least learn enough of the language where you can comfortably get around, I would do the same if I were to move to another country. It's just common sense.

If you mean just learn another language in general, of course! It is easier as a kid plus it fosters appreciation for foreign languages later. Requiring art, music and gym classes but not even offering a foreign language till high school in some schools just sends the message that learning another language isn't that important.

Answer 3

and what is exactly does it mean to be American?

Do Americans speak English? no we speak American English, it's different
Do Americans stay out of other countries affairs? no we are all in it up to our eyeballs
Are Americans ignorant to the world around them? no we have tv and net and all kinds of things, except what? a culture of our own.

American culture is borrowed from every known culture the world around twice. A huge portion of our governmental system comes from Latin Rome Senate AND the Iroquois Tribal Nation. The people here speak as many languages as you can fathom, because they are from as many countries as you can correctly identify. The only thing that is truely American is The WIld West (which I would never wish to go back to) and Martin Luther King Day, and even then some people won't even give that the proper respect it deserves.

Learn another language just one and help prove that Americans are not as stupid and lazy as the rest of the world believes.

The fact of the matter is that America does not have an offically sanctioned language. Sure sure Americans speak English, because that it taught in the public schools....but, if a switch happened you WILL BE taken off guard should another language be thrown upon you. When this nation first began, German, Dutch, and Spanish were all tossed about to be an official language to this land we live in. How different would your world be if the language was actually voted upon 200 years ago?

Answer 4

Being as you are doubtlessly monolingual, you are unaware that a language limits not only the people you can understand, but also the thoughts you can think and the things you can't say.

You might as well ask why read books when you can spend your whole life watching TV.

The reason is that your children deserve a better education. In most European nations, children begin learning a foreign language in elementary school, and many French, Belgians, Dutch, Swedes and Germans can speak English to you so well that you could not tell that they were not Americans.

Why should the US be a nation of dummies? Are you aware that a majority of engineers and scientists earning advanced degrees in US universities are not Americans and most of these are not native English speakers?

Many scientific discoveries and texts are written in other languages. English is not even the most spoken language in the world: that would be Mandarin Chinese, spoken by the people made your clothes and most of your Christmas presents.

Not all Chinese speak Mandarin, but all can read Chinese characters, which are unrelated to pronunciation.

So you are an American. One of sixteen people on the planet are Americans.

Big Whoopee.

Answer 5

Speaking as a citizen of the United States, I would counter your question with the question, "why would you not want your child to learn another language".

Science has shown that people who learn 3 or more languages to fluency test at the genius level on intelligence tests. U.S. children have the lowest test scores on standardized tests of any first-world nation. We are constantly shown up by other countries, even countries who have far fewer educational opportunities than our children.

If we are going to start kicking things out of our children's school experience it should be things that have far less educational value, like spending 10 minutes of a 45 minute class taking attendance, all the teaching to the standardized tests. We need to get back to teaching the true basics, Languages (including English), foreign languages introduced in Elementary school, Mathematics, Science, Art & Music. All the things that help our children learn to think for themselves, and excel in our increasingly shrinking world.

Answer 6

Well, if you expect your children to stay in the US all their lives and only surround themselves with American-English speaking people, then I guess there isn't any reason for them to learn another language.

That said, perhaps one should not see learning another language as something negative - it can be a huge advantage to your children. I grew up as bi-lingual and later learned a third language and I have only had positive experiences with it. It's made my life easier and given me more possibilities and options than I otherwise would have had, especially regarding schooling and career. It's quite common today to work with international companies or to travel to other countries for the best schooling options. A recent survey showed that English speaking countries are in danger of falling behind on the global market, because of the one-language issue. Why not give your children as many options and advantages as possible? They do not have to use them, but at least they'll have the choice and be competitive in our global world.

Answer 7

Why should our children learn to walk? They will have cars when they get older.

Why shouldn't they be learning another language? Or are you afraid your kids won't be able to master it? Personally I am proud of the fact that I speak more than just one language and it has definitely given me the edge over others in getting jobs. Think about it, if you had two candidates for a job and both were equally qualified but one of them was multi-lingual and the other spoke only English and refused to even learn another language, which one would you consider to be more of an asset?

I agree with the person who said you must be one of those people who expects that everyone will speak YOUR language when you travel. Or maybe you don't even leave your backyard for fear of opening up your mind a little.

Answer 8

Because America is not the only country in the world. I have family in Europe that is quintlingual (5 languages) including English. In the business world, who will have a better chance? Americans who know English and what little knowledge of the language they took in High School? Or the Europeans who fluently, can speak 5 language? If you ask me, we should be making our kids take more than one language, from pre school

Answer 9

Because America is not the center of the world, and English is not the most commonly spoken language. There are 1.2 billion people in China, plus a huge number of ethnic Chinese living in the rest of the world. Learning Mandarin Chinese would be an advantage this century.

Answer 10

because it gives us a chance to learn somthing, such as a second lanuage, so that way it gets ur brain thinking in 2 lanuages (srry i just pulling sh%t out of no where) well the same goes for, y do we have to learn science, algebra, history, all those subjects