Whether We Need to Learn a Foreign Language

The first fundamental function of learning foreign language is that it provides students chances to have a glimpse of the culture of other countries. It is only by having the knowledge of another culture, can we learn tolerance and understand ways different from our own. Aside from that, we can also understand how different religions shape different cultures. Besides, there are so many masterpieces from countries like China and India that are written in the language with words that may don’t even exist in English. Understanding these would be of great importance in enriching and improving the way American students perceive the world. According to Sapir’s Whorf Hypothesis, language and culture are inextricably linked with one another. Thus the understanding of culture is not possible without knowledge of its language and vice versa. The circumstances under which a word is used, the sentence structures as well as the vocabulary are all reference about how a person thinks.

Also, in workplace, the ability to speak another language nowadays automatically makes a person more attractive to employers. As with the internationalization and globalization, one has to be prepared with the ability to communicate and do business with any competing peers from all around the world, for example, France and German. As is well acknowledged, if one wants to sell something to someone, it is an advantage to speak their language given the importance of personal relationships in business. For example, A friend of mine, born in the US, has family who speaks another language and so of course, he learned and speaks it at home. He was directly contacted by several big employers because of it. For this sake, foreign language programs are in larger demand than it seems.

Just because our mother tongue has become the leading language of international discourse doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to produce as many bilingual citizens as possible. The ignorance of other language may lead to