Response to: So You Want To Learn To Say More Than Just Ni Hao?
Why knowing only English can be a disadvantage…
Yes, we should ALL want to learn to say more than just Ni Hao.
The globe is learning English… why? Because we’ve told them to. Part of the shift of power or what Zakaria calls the “rise of the rest” is the global use of the English language, nearing one quarter of the planet. Zakaria says:
“What sounds young and modern today is English. No language has ever spread so broadly and deeply across the world…
…Some 80% of the electronically stored information in the world is in English”
We know English is spreading like wildfire, but people do not forget their native tongue to take on English. They use it as an additional language. The gap here seems obvious to me: Americans know English, that’s it.
The rest of the world has adopted business practices, from the U.S. and Europe; we pushed this to happen. What Westerners failed to predict is how the lack of our own foreign language and culture knowledge would leave us behind, as much of the world is becoming bi and multi-lingual.
Many Californians know Spanish, probably because of the proximity to Mexico and the immigrant influence on California’s agricultural economy. In this golden state, most of us land on a spectrum of understanding and/or speaking Spanish.
Other languages do not seem to be commonly spoken, by Americans born in the US that is. It’s refreshing to hear the occasional foreign language in our not-so-culturally-diverse town.
We seem to be a tattle tale of a country and the one to point fingers. Zakaria states, “we are the only country in the world to issue annual report cards on every other country’s behavior.”
What has happened while we were pointing fingers and giving report cards elsewhere? Has our own ego created our potential demise?
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