

Why waste time on a foreign language? - tokenadult
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/04/why_waste_time_on_a_foreign_la.html

======
danh
I agree that studying a foreign language in school probably is a waste of time
(at least that's been my experience). But, at the same time, languages are a
lot of fun.

This is my experience:

* English. Being Swedish, we started with English in 3rd grade, and continued for years. But I suspect that ubiquitous American series and films on Swedish television were way more important than the formal education.

* German. Three years in school, totally wasted. I managed to learn a whole lot of words, and still remember some grammatical rules, but I could not speak German even if my life depended on it.

* French. After university, I decided to take a stab at French. I came up with my own model, that basically consisted in keeping a French novel in my left hand, and a translation in the right.

That worked a lot better than the formal education in German: after a while I
could read pretty much anything in French. Unfortunately my method doesn't
help at all with speaking and understanding the French. So now I can read
Proust, but have trouble ordering a beer in the darned language. I wouldn't
recommend that method.

* Spanish. I decided to try another homegrown method with Spanish, basically focusing on listening alone. I listened to Spanish podcasts, radio and TV as much as I could, but not always very actively.

With a little help from some Spanish speaking friends, I am now quite fluent.
And it turns out that learning to read Spanish is quite easy, if you already
know most of the words by ear. So going from spoken language to written works,
but not the other way around (at least not for me).

So, for me, formal language education has indeed largely been a waste of time.
But it doesn't have to be. If I could come up with two methods better that the
school's, the teachers ought to be able to at least do the same.

~~~
billybob
I counter your anecdote with mine: I first studied Spanish in college and
became fluent in it, in large part thanks to my classroom studies.

Yes, I got practice with conversation partners and two studies abroad. But
learning the vocabulary, drilling on the verb tenses, and doing the writing
assignments prepared me to start parsing those real-world sentences into words
I understood. When I understood 4 out of 5 words, or when I wanted to say
something but didn't know a particular word, I would go back to the dictionary
for the missing part.

And when I heard a novel tense, like "que TENGAS un buen dia," I'd go back to
my professor and ask about it. (That was subjunctive, generally used for
hypothetical, doubtful, or wished-for circumstances.)

I think that a combination of classroom and real-world learning is the best
way to attain fluency.

~~~
narag
_generally used for hypothetical, doubtful, or wished-for circumstances._

Not in this case. There is an elipsis: [te deseo] que tengas un buen día. ([I
wish you] that you have a good day).

Edit: OK, I answered too fast. Its use in this case indeed indicates wished-
for.

------
Groxx
_I’d wager close to 80.percent of kids taking foreign languages in high school
do so because they have to._

Funny. I'd wager that percentile is true for high school _as a whole_. People
rarely do what's good for them (long term) on their own.

Personally, I think we should be exposing kids to languages _much_ earlier,
because they're more capable of learning them and it sets up your brain for
not-everything's-one-language pathways, making picking up other ones easier in
the future.

~~~
billybob
"it sets up your brain for not-everything's-one-language pathways"

Yep. Also, you get a good feel for difficult vs easy sentences.

I only speak English and Spanish, but if someone from Russian or Korea or
Bangladesh with minimal English skills showed up to a party, I'd have a much
easier time choosing phrases he could understand than folks who didn't know a
second language would.

This is partly seeing what it's like to be a beginner in a language, and
partly from negotiating around the things you don't know as you learn. If you
don't know how to say "it's in the trunk," you say "it's in the back part of
the car where you put things, that you open with a key." And the other person
will say, "oh, the trunk!"

I suspect that this "ability to rephrase" also helps me explain technical
things to non-technical people.

------
oostevo
His thesis seems to be that he didn't like language classes very much, and
that some colleges don't require language knowledge anymore, so we should do
away with them.

Why 'waste time' with languages? I can rattle off a few reasons: the goal
isn't to teach only subjects that people enjoy, but to help create productive
and responsible citizens of not only our country, but of the entire world.
Particularly in this age of globalization, it's increasingly important for
people to have knowledge of languages other than English.

Further, the earlier one starts with language education, the better one is at
learning _all_ languages later in life. It also makes traveling vastly easier.

It's also usually the case that by learning the language of a people, you
begin to have a much better understanding of their culture. Even for people
who have no intention of leaving the borders of the United States, it's
becoming harder and harder to count on English being spoken in all parts of
the country.

Or, shorter: because it makes you a better person. Screw getting into college.

~~~
brg
This is an American article, and so I will speak to an American audience.

I think in order to create more understanding throughout the entire world we
should promote a common, single language. I think we could do more good to set
up free English schools throughout the developing world than to take on 2-3
year graduation requirements that are hold-overs from a centuries old idea of
education.

~~~
der_ketzer
Esperanto tried it and failed. Languages are a way of identity.

And it's not a matter of "third world countries". I'm from Mexiko and started
learning german at the age of 4, spanish (at school) at 7, english at 11, and
french at 16. Thanks to that I could study Informatics at Germany. I think
learning languages gives you another perspective of the world, helps you to
communicate with others in different ways (not only in theri native language),
helps you to "understand" their logic, etc. Sadly my english is bad and my
french worst. But I'm able to read/speak three languages and has helped me in
my labor life.

~~~
brg
The problem that I was identifying was the unification of humanity through
language. There are two main ways to attack the problem, everyone can be
multilingual or everyone can know a common language.

Every first world country teaches English to their students, so who do we
focus on? Every quickly developing nation has a culture which encourages
English (by her grandparents suggestion, my neice in Beijing is only allowed
to speak English when I visit). And by having English language education in
developing countries you get past the cultural disparity much quicker. The
point here is the difference between missionaries and ex-pats, who helps a
country more? If India is an example, the answer is clearly expats.

Language as identity does not explain the failure of Esperanto. Heres the
difference between Esperanto and English. In comparison to working through
Unua Libro, the benefits of learning English actually exist. If I know
Hungarian and Esperanto, I can not find a job as a taxi driver in London no
matter how long I spend driving around town. If I know Hindi and English, with
a few trips to the library and a couple years of practice I can work at any
tech company in the world.

~~~
tokenadult
_Language as identity does not explain the failure of Esperanto._

True. Lack of a large and interesting network (as you say) and some remarkable
design blunders

<http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/>

are what explain the failure of Esperanto. The MAJORITY of people using
English worldwide at this moment have no national identity in common with the
English. (I have English ancestry, but it is the smallest part of my ancestry,
and the majority of the population of the United States is of non-English
descent, and yet uses English as the primary language of communication.)
People learn English not because English has any particular virtues as a
language, and certainly not because they have an identification with Anglo-
Saxon heritage, but simply because English is an available tool of
communication with unmatched network size. You and I can have great
conversations with interesting people from all over the world in English, as
we do every day on Hacker News.

------
wheels
The thing that's ignored in most discussions about language learning in
different cultures is that language skills reflect economic necessity, not
culturedness.

In Europe, where there's a smattering of mutually incomprehensible languages
in a relatively small geographic space, trade requires the emergence of common
languages. Greek, Latin, French and now English have each had their go at that
role.

You see the same in many third world countries where there are local language,
national languages and international languages (i.e. Punjabi / Hindi /
English).

The US is the seat of the modern lingua franca, the world's largest economy
and relatively linguistically isolated since most of the continent speaks the
same language. As such there's a negligible amount of pressure to learn
additional languages and, well, people don't.

------
KeepTalking
I am comfortable in 3 languages ( English / Indian Language / Kswahili ). The
interesting theme was the seeds for these languages was laid @ < 3 grade . I
still speak all the 3 languages in a good order of comfort.

I did try and learn french in high school and it turned out to be a waste of
my time.

My learning of languages is influenced by 2 themes 1\. I learn t each of these
3 languages in environments where they were used extensively practically.

2\. I learn t them young

The reason i failed in my efforts of french : were precisely the opposite of
the 2 points above.

------
WildUtah
Most people can't make any significant progress in a foreign language without
social support. That means more than classes four hours a week; it usually
means total immersion with friends or a host family or both.

People around the world learning English have advantages in that most of their
peers also want to try the world's most popular language and Hollywood and the
Internet have pushed English language media everywhere. English speakers
learning a foreign language don't have advantages like that. Americans don't
have much help at all learning a foreign language unless they're in one of the
Spanish-speaking parts of the USA learning Spanish.

Language acquisition is no more difficult for adults than for children. The
myth of easy childhood learning is based on their lack of fear, their
willingness to ask for help, and the mountains of free time children have for
learning. Adults who want to learn a language usually have to commit to
spending several months in a row abroad away from job and family. Few can
afford to do so.

I did go abroad and learned my second language as an adult. I liked it but it
was very expensive and few will choose to do it.

But studying a language in an American high school is unlikely to benefit
anyone much. The youngsters would be much better off saving the four hours a
week for two years and spending six weeks in an immersive program in Guatemala
or Seoul.

------
rimantas
Because then you can waste even more time on very fine things like
cinematography or literature in original Language. Translations just don't cut
it, no matter how good they are. English is my fourth language and I would
gladly add at least one more—I am seriously considering learning Swedish.

~~~
jdminhbg
The author isn't asking why people waste time learning a foreign language.
He's asking why people waste time studying a foreign language without
intending to ever complete the task of learning it, by, for example, taking
two high school classes in it.

~~~
arethuza
Surely school is a time when kids should be exposed to many different subjects
to see what ones they find interesting?

------
tokenadult
Of course many Hacker News participants come from non-English-speaking
countries but have learned English to high proficiency, so I'd be glad to hear
their opinions on this question about American secondary school curricula.

~~~
michael_dorfman
I'm an American living in Norway, so I can compare the systems a bit for you,
at least from my experience:

In Norway, kids start learning their second language (English) in First Grade,
and their third language (Spanish, French and German are most common) in 7th
Grade.

It seems clear to me that this is bound to give better results than starting
in 9th Grade, as is common in the US.

Personally, I always found languages hard to learn, and I'm still clumsy in my
spoken Norwegian, even after 12 years here. On the other hand, my children are
completely bilingual, and became so effortlessly. I think it's a shame that
the plasticity of young brains is wasted on a single language, in most cases,
and that the task of learning a foreign tongue is delayed until such an age as
to maximize the amount of effort required.

~~~
jleyank
Concur. I find it easier living in Quebec having had French in grade/high
school. Can't really speak/understand it, but I can read a fair bit, more than
enough to get by. But then my hearing's shot, and the accent here isn't what I
learned (Parisian).

So I guess we're in agreement - start them young with a second language when
they're better able to assimilate it.

------
hugh3
I'm not fluent in any foreign languages, but I have a grasp of the basics of
French, German, Italian and Spanish -- enough to read signs, muddle my way
through a menu or in some cases a newspaper.

I wonder if it would be possible to teach a survey course of modern and
ancient languages, one that doesn't aim to give fluency in any one language
but instead focuses on the different forms which language can take, how
various languages are interrelated, how English words are related to Romantic
and Germanic roots and enough general proficiency to be able to instantly
answer questions like "what language(s) do they speak in Kenya?" It might
produce a much better person than four hundred hours spent muddling through
memorizing French verbs you'll probably never need.

------
lmkg
I will concede one point to the article, which is that if you wait until high
school to start learning a foreign language, you won't get much out of it.
According to modern theories of cognitive development, you switch from
language "acquisition" to language "learning" sometime around puberty (usually
cited as age 13). The two models of gaining knowledge and skills are
qualitatively different both in how they operate, and in the benefits they
give.

I don't have a link, but I've heard that there's solid research saying that
kids who grow up bilingual have a better basis for abstract concepts. This
makes sense to me: having two symbols for everything makes you more aware of
the difference between the symbol and the thing it stands for, and having two
ways of expressing a concept makes you more open to hother ways of expressing
(and perceiving) it.

The main point is, if you start taking your first foreign language in high
school, you're only acquiring the single skill of speaking that one language,
and I agree that skill may not be utile for you. If you start learning foreign
languages earlier (even 2 years earlier!), it has an impact much larger than
gaining a single skill. Language is fundamental to human thought, and being
able to speak more than one language makes it easier to think in different
ways.

I would say that teaching kids a foreign language early on is as important as
math skills early on, and programming concepts should probably be given the
same treatment. Not that I expect every kid to grow up into a programmer, but
that style of thinking is useful.

------
ktf
First off: learning _anything_ is not a waste of time.

Second, the same could be said of any subject: most students only learn math
because they're forced to, or history because they're forced to, and they're
not likely to retain that information after leaving high school unless they
have a personal desire to do so. Does that mean we should stop putting kids in
math classes, or history classes?

We (the US) should probably focus on making language classes more worthwhile,
and putting kids in them when they're younger, like the rest of the world.

~~~
billybob
Yeah, this statement specifically: "I’d wager close to 80.percent of kids
taking foreign languages in high school do so because they have to."
...applies to any required high school subject you want to name.

------
tzs
I'm slowly trying to learn Spanish so I'll have more options for naming
variables in my programs.

~~~
mahmud
You're doing both programming and Spanish wrong.

------
elviejo
Only in USA learning a foreign language would be considered a waste.

~~~
anamax
The US and the EU are of comparable population.

Being able to speak Texan, Californian, and a couple of other American
dialects gets me as far in the US as knowing German, French, Italian, and
Spanish would get me in the EU.

~~~
philwelch
Which is why you go for big continental languages. Spanish will get you most
of Latin America, English will cover you fairly well over most of Europe,
North America, India, and Australia, Arabic will cover the Middle East, and
then probably the biggest languages left are Russian and Mandarin. I don't
know what languages would help in Africa, but French seems like another big
colonial language.

