Re: Why Americans feel no compulsion to learn foreign languages

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 9:37 PM 3/27/96, Alan Bostick wrote:
>In article <ad7e4b691902100484d7@[205.199.118.202]>,
>tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) wrote:
>
>> Americans are typically thousands of miles away from those speaking
>> Japanese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Hindi,
>> Talegu, and the hundreds of other languages. It is not at all clear what
>> language Americans should pick as a "second language" to study.
>
>What continent do you live on?  As I write this my next-door neighbor's
>stereo is blaring out music in Yoruba.  When I took my mother to the

Your point being? My point was not that America is monolingual but that, in
fact, the polyglot nature makes no particular language or small group of
languages stand out as a compelling candidate for study.

You want to study Yoruba, fine. It might be interesting. It might help you
to follow the lyrics of your neighbor's music. But I don't find it
compelling to study in the same way that English is important to study.

--Tim May

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