This piece fundamentally misunderstands Americas reactions to Spanish spoken in public. If I were going to live in Mexico I would learn Spanish and speak it exclusively in public settings as a token of solidarity with my new country. When I see young Latino couples speaking Spanish to their toddlers in the local supermarket, I wonder what they are thinking. Given that English is the lingua franca of the modern world, the only truly international language,they are in advance , doing a disservice to their children. OK, for reasons of heritage and culture, speak Spanish at home. But in public show solidarity with your country and its people by sharing the common language as well as increasing fluency as an absolute necessity for economic flourishing. Otherwise, the impression given is that Latinos are just here for the money and would rather be somewhere else. Before I am attacked for being a racist xenophobe, a true racist would ENCOURAGE Latinos to speak only Spanish as a means of isolating them from the larger culture and ensuring their economic decline.
32
Speaking a second language, and having decent reading comprehension, has created tremendous opportunities for me the past 35 years, and still dies today - both personally and professionally. Now, let’s reintroduce a curriculum steeped in respect for diversity and multilingualism but centered on American civics, history and ideals.
38
These clerks need to be chastised for their lousy customer service skills.
How rude. Isn't the customer supposed to be always right?
The clerks are fortunate that there are shoppers at the store, whom they can serve. Without customers, the clerk may not have a job.
20
Although I’m trilingual, there’s one language I struggle with: the one of Political Correctness.
‘Latinx Americans’. How is that any better or clearer than ‘Latin Americans’? It’s the kind of language and vocabulary designed to signal some kind of moral superiority.
You’re playing the same game as those who choose not to understand the gesticulating mother in your article.
58
We decided to move to France a couple years ago for several reasons, but one of them is most certainly to learn not just a different language but a different culture. What a gift to have that opportunity at the age of 60. And we’ve been very well received here, even in what would be considered “red country” (predominantly National Front supporters) in America. Only in the US do people celebrate monoculturalism and monolinguism—and denigrate those who aren’t. Life is good; it’s better when you’ve lived abroad, especially in a non-English-speaking country. I wasn’t afraid to do it, either, as I’d already been a foreign-exchange student in Germany in 1976. Happy to say my French is almost as good as my German at this point—damning with faint praise!
27
My first language is Spanish, my second Italian, my third Portugues, my fourth French, my fifth German, and I am working on Latin and Dutch.
Duolingo is of great help; it opens new windows to the world: I can read Le Monde, Liberation, Corriere Della Sera, Folha de Sao Paulo, O Globo and O Povo. I know, first hand how the Argentinians are suffering reading Clarin, same with the Venezuelans, the Brazilians, etc.
Most of the news do not inform bout those countries, so reading those newspapers is very interesting.
It is sad to be monolingual, makes the person an "insular" person. it is like been in jail... aa mental jail.
36
If I moved to another country, it would be my first priority to learn THEIR language in as close to a native accent that I could achieve. I’ve spent years working on my French.
I’ve heard quite a few stories of Hispanic people pretending they don’t speak or understand English. Why? Is it so much to ask that immigrants to this country, of any nationality, learn to speak English in a comprehensible manner? I wouldn’t dream of trying to speak Any other language in another country without at least making the effort to duplicate their native accent. Is it wrong to think maybe other nationalities do the same in the US?
105
Take a look at the masthead of this newspaper online. It can be read in three languages: English, Spanish, and Chinese. These are the main global languages today. Knowing more than one of them will enhance your life and that of others. As someone on who learned to speak and read Chinese well as an adult, I have great respect for those who can become bilingual, but also sympathy for those who have nor or will not. It is a choice.
15
My mother-tongue is German. After the second World War English was mandatory in our west-German schools. But we also studied Latin and sound German grammar from age 6, First grade. With 14 I was brought to the US and had no problem understanding the American English, including also its odd quarrels and uncertainties in grammar. Our family continued to speak German. And that remained so throughout my life: At home we speak German, outside the home English. I also learned Greek at Princeton and a little French and Italian: My professional life carried me to conferences in France, Italy and elsewhere. Language is really living culture. Language is not a tool: You begin to live another culture by picking up its habits and ways of thought. But being bi- or multilingual thereby necessarily involves a broad discussion between the lives of those different cultures. The effect is to de-provincialize. You learn to appreciate different experiences, heritages and future prospects. Reading five or six different newspapers in different languages throws light on entrenched ways of acting and thought: Germans are not necessarily Nazis. Rural Americans are not necessarily Trumpists, nor are Americans necessarily rich, a broad European bias. But yes, it takes effort. Not to give in to the comforts of conformism. Nor to empty illusions of elitist difference. In short, cultivating the life of multiple languages takes constant emotional and intellectual effort. But the payoff is great!
31
It is commonplace in many other countries for children to learn and speak multiple languages, generally in different contexts. A Bengali living in New Delhi, for example, would know Bengali, Hindi/Urdu, and English.
12
It's very difficult to learn a language other than English and perhaps Spanish in the US if you do not have the advantages of a bilingual household. However, one can sometimes learn what I like to think of as the “literary dialect” or written version of foreign languages here by reading, both online and in e-books, and eventually writing, for example in social media. To me this is the greatest benefit of Internet to the spread US American multilingualism, even though the literary dialect is of limited usefulness in using the spoken language.
The main advantage of being able to use the written dialect is that you'll be able to read foreign authors in the original language, including the treasure chest of untranslated works. Among these are of course current periodicals, which are rarely translated.
Having facile use of the literary dialect can also be very useful in travel, since you'll be able to decipher signs and so on, even if you still have considerable difficulty with the spoken dialects you will encounter. (If the language uses a near-phonemic writing system, you'll undoubtedly do better in making yourself understood, even if you may have difficulty in understanding what people say to you.)
5
Our thought is not just language utilized in silence. Thoughts are composed of images, sounds, tastes, smells, and the sense of touch, in varying proportions. The most tenacious memory is olfactory not aural.
We use language to express thought - language is as often, or more often, preceded by thought as it is followed by thought. Of course, language aids thought. It's a symbiotic relationship. But it is doubtful that humans a hundred or two hundred years ago did not think, though their language may have been rudimentary. How else did they survive in a decidedly hostile environment?
If thought was mere language, there would be no poetry. Poetry is an artful and aesthetic expression of thought that is in varying degrees difficult to express. A painting is an expression of thought that uses no words. The same goes for music.
10:41 Sat am
3
I have a love for language, and enjoy using the smatterings I possess. But I'm a stickler for correct pronunciation (and have even been told by French-speakers that I have a good accent, a hard goal to achieve). So how does one pronounce "Latinx?" "La-tinks?" If that's the case, I refuse. I don't think a Romance language (or many others) can or should be made gender-neutral just for the sake of political correctness. Only in America, with her perenniallly censorious attitudes toward everything. It was ever thus in this puritanical land of ours. No mas Latinx, por favor.
19
I speak English, German, Russian, Python, and R. The last two are the most useful.
12
It is a gift and a joy to be bilingual. The lesson needs to be learnd by those who choose to be monolingual and expect to successfully function without learning the language of yhe land. Quand je vais à la france, je parle français. It is not xenophobic to observe that a common language is indispensable to society. I feel bad for people who have been misled into thinking that its no problem living in the us and not learning English
3
There was the old joke among the haughty Europeans.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks only one language? An American.
That joke is no longer relevant thanks to Latinos.
119
I am multi-lingual.
I speak and understand white American Northern and Southern English, white Australian English, white British English, white Canadian English and white New Zealand English.
I speak and understand black Ebonics English, black South Side Chicago English and black Southern English.
You can't separate language from culture.
8
My ancestors came to America speaking Manx, French, Italian and Yiddish, but their descendants were robbed of their native languages by schools that refuse to establish bilingual education programs for children of Manx, French, Italian and Yiddish immigrants. American Community Survey data shows 350 languages are now spoken in U.S. home. All immigrant parents should insist their children speak only native languages at home. The Education Department should require schools to employ bilingual eduction teachers proficient in each of the 350 languages. Schools that have a Manx students should have Manx proficient instructors.
6
I applaud bilingualism, multilingualism.
What concerns me are those who hold onto an old language at the expense of learning English.
The functional illiteracy rate in New Mexico is 46%. 20% of kids are proficient in math and 31% in English.
Compare that with New York state, which has a huge immigrant population, and 45% are proficient in math and 46% in English.
Speak 2 languages, or 3 or 4. Great!
But let's not glamorize holding onto the old language if it holds back kids and adults.
20
The article suggests that people speaking only Spanish and not English are discriminated against, not seen, not being looked in the eye. What happens when you’re an immigrant from another non-Spanish speaking country, like I was, when translators were not available at Walmarts and Costcos and goodwill shops? What should those immigrants do? It was incumbent upon me and my family to learn English as quickly and as well as possible to assimilate swiftly so our own everyday lives would be easier. We continued to speak our native tongue at home and I even spoke it to my children. I am still surprised, after having lived here for over 40 years, how many Latinos do not speak English after living in the US for many years. They seem to take comfort in their numbers, relying on their large communities that assimilate them but that also contribute to their isolation and marginalization. Learning the host country’s language, wherever you plan to live in the world, seems to me a top priority and incumbent upon newcomers.
25
My grandparents came to the US.They did not speak English at home. But outside the home? English. My parents - born in the US did not speak English at home (as kids) - but at school and business? English. My kids?
Perfectly bilingual.
My peev is not that people speak another language; it is that they think that it is OK to not speak English.
Want to emigrate to Quebec? First pass a test to prove that your written and spoken French is at the level of a 15 y.o. native. Can't pass? Don't come.
Similarly with many other countries.
Don't/won't speak English? Stay away!
Learn it as a second language, learn it as a 3rd language, learn it as a 4th. Learn it or stay away.
Speak any language at home or anywhere as you prefer. But speak English when addressed in English.
18
An old joke in Europe: What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. And a person who speaks only one language? An American.
In deference to my presence, my European colleagues would change American to Englishman.
Either way, the sense of our utter insularity or willful ignorance was palpable to me.
As a first generation American brought up in a tri-lingual speaking household, I had a leg up on some while I was working in Europe and getting closer to its people.
One life lesson learned; Jesus, as some believe, did not speak (only) English. The world is far richer.
3
American linguaphobia is unique among developed countries. And it has a serious downside: How can you make good deals with people who know your language while you don't know theirs?
9
Thank you for this beautiful article.
5
Lack of patience and tolerance of those who don’t speak English is a sign of ignorance.
Those who speak only the language of their place of birth have no idea how hard it is to learn a second language as an adult. It requires not only intellect but the willingness to endure embarrassment because their English is not perfect.
I am mightily impressed with newcomers to this country who learn to speak well enough to be understood within 6 months of arrival.
Maybe if the single language folks knew how hard it is to learn a second language they would have more compassion for those whose English is not perfect.
And maybe try traveling in a foreign country where English is not the native language but people help you anyway.
18
Can we devise a taunt to get Schiff to make public the secret information that he often has said he has, that proves that Trump was colluding with the Russians?
If you are an immigrant, NEVER let go of your native language! Bilingual is a wonderful gift. Definitely push Spanish in our schools! Wish I had done that, instead of French.
14
Even more important than speaking two languages is speaking one, the language of the country one lives in. I notice Americans are just as guilty of language laziness as anyone else. As an expat there is a huge division between those who speak the language of the country they are living in, and those who don't. The same is true for immigrants to the USA. Language more than anything else allows assimilation.
10
Eloquent last paragraph, Natalia.
In my business travels through Latin America I was successful making instant friends when as a typical looking Dane would surprise them by speaking fluent Spanish with them. I'd tell them "soy vikingo, no gringo" to relieved chuckles from customers - my bona fides as a Spanish speaking Dane helped me sell a lot of American manufactured equipment.
Mercantile benefits aside of using your customer's native language, multiple languages enrich one's life, to better understand it providing more nuanced meaning where just the right word is in a different language. There are many words and phrases that can't be properly translated. There's a reason we have so many French words used in English, the language mixing pot.
It was an experience visiting a Dutch friend I grew up with in Mexico, sitting in on family dinner banter in four languages, fluently transitioning between them all at random. I do that too with my bilingual friends, but limited to two languages.
If you like poetry, learn Spanish and discover poetry or listen to lyrics in Spanish. It's a beautiful thing!
Language is about human connection. Racists and supremacists reject connecting with people they hate - like the orange one despicably uses the English language to abuse others.
El naranjado one's offensive insults of my longtime Mexican friends since childhood and business partner-friends... I have no words - English or Spanish - to describe my rage and hatred for this odious man.
6
The house that is divided will not stand. Our parents understood it. Large successful European countries do as well (France, Germany). Why can't we? The author seems to suggest I learn Spanish. I, in turn, suggest the subjects of her sad story learn English.
9
Full disclosure: I am a French immigrant. I just have to share an old European joke: if you speak 3 languages you are trilingual, if you speak 2 languages you are bilingual and if you speak only one language you are American. I love this country btw.
1
You were right, actually, when interpreting, not to switch into the third person, but to stay in the first person. That is how professional interpreters interpret.
The derision that you describe from insecure monolinguals when someone dares speak their own language, or dares to know more than one language fluently, is too common, and is a clear sign of an ignorant person. It is instinctive hatred for anything different from the “norm” (aka oneself, always oneself).
I sometimes would encounter this attitude in doctors’ offices where I would interpret. The not-so-worldly receptionist would visibly and audibly sneer, “Oh, so you are here to interpret for the patient?!” “Yes,” I said, “and I am also here to interpret for the doctor.”
9
And let's admit it... being able to listen in when people think you can't understand them can be amusing, educational and enlightening
3
Nothing wrong with speaking your native tongue. Unless you are in a country that predominantly speaks another language. Then its akin to whispering in silence secret. And that my friend is rude. Even if one try’s to translate there is always the suspicion of “that’s not what you said”. So speak away in your home or in private but when in Roam...
5
Maybe if I had applied myself a bit more in Spanish class, I could write more like you in English. Wonderful!
1
Yes, I wish I spoke at least one more language other then my native American, east coast English. But would the correct one be? The classic Spanish I failed at four years in a rowin high school? Or the classic French that was the only other option? There was the 2 years of must-take Latin classes (Roman Catholic Prep school)...but there too I struggled with the dead language.
English grammar only made sense (most times) to me because...well...I was allegedly speaking it on a regular basis. And when I wasn't it was because I was exiled to spend a week or two in the summer with my Brooklyn cousins...who spoke a wholly new version. And where my refined suburban tongue was quickly heard and caused me many a time to sprint several blocks when I would have rather strolled. (But I learned to climb fences real well.)
If I could pick one or two today to at least be capable of muddling thru (and even be capable of reading) and not end up insulting generations of native speakers...it would be of course, a decent version of Latin American. Then Arabic, or maybe Farsi, or both. Yeah...both. So that would be three.
Those I see as the most useful going forward.
I would especially like to be able to read Arabic. That would be incredible. It would be a great career bump, and a way to be of use to so many of the idiots in our govt who refuse to even consider understanding the diverse peoples they insist on labeling all as enemy combatants.
4
It can be miraculous when you come across “la mot juste” in anther language that best captures and expresses meaning or sentiment. Bilinguals or polyglots know this. There’s no better word than “chutzpah” to best capture the shamelessness of our president and or GOP Senate, for instance.
4
@Ted: the fact that it’s really “LE mot juste” adds a nice touch of unintended irony to your comment.
2
Beautifully put.
I’d like to put a word in here for teaching foreign languages in schools, starting in primary school. I have mastered several languages at various levels, but even my weakest.language, German, has stood me in good stead in a variety of situations.
In addition to the many other terrible ways of bashing of immigrants, they are demeaned as if they are stupid because they don’t know English. Just put one of our “superior” Americans in the positions described in this article and see how they get alone.
Oh yes, I forgot, making America great again will ensure that we never have to interact at all with foreigners.
7
Beautifully expressed.
i hang out with several europeans. They are bylingual. My daughter is bylingual. Its a good thing. Makes you respect others.
1
Gracias Natalia por compartir con todos el valor de poder hablar español. I recommend the movie “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” as it depicts a lot of what you write. It also highlights the importance of getting it right as you navigate two languages, especially when you do it for others. I think about the kids in cages and the translators who hold their future in their hands as they face a judge or officer. I consider it a privilege to be bilingual and never stop educating others because when you know two cultures you have an inside look into how biased everyone can be. Gracias.
4
US is a country of immigrants. During our first 209 years, attitude toward language developed in the context of having large number of immigrants speaking languages other than English arrive and assimilate. Badge of honor among immigrants (and anglo) natives became speaking english properly. Add isolation, xenophobia and some racism to the mix and the result became of a country where a second language was not valued or necessary.
As other regions and countries have risen in power and economic relevance, the importance of speaking other languages has become evident, changing the attitudes of many to learning other languages here in this country. We still have a contingent of our population with the older attitude but the evolution of the average american has been swift.
I am thankful for this change as I believe speaking a second or several languages opens one mind as stated by others in this chain. I say learn english if you come in the US, learn a second language if you are already here and ignore the idiots that say “learn english” as they are dying breed.
1
Everyone should try to be bilingual.
6
I used to think like the author, not anymore.
I have embraced the American culture and language. We don’t travel to my native country often so my children don’t need to speak Spanish. I don’t work with Latinos so I don’t need to speak Spanish.
And I noticed that Spanish TV and Spanish media do a disservice to the Latino community by eliminating the need to learn English and limiting the number of good jobs Latinos could apply to.
7
It’s wonderful to speak more than one language. Did Ms. Sylvester’s parents learn English? I am amazed at how many people living in this country don’t speak English and don’t attempt to learn it.
8
Will the whining ever stop?
Bilingual runs in the family but not this endless whining.
4
Each of us hyphenated Americans have our own tales to tell. When I arrived from Cuba as a seventeen year old refugee I encountered everything from "NO NEGROES, NO DOGS, NO CUBANS" on some doors of places with rooms for rent. Unfazed and equipped with highs school level English I went to college, took remedial English and eventually earned two degrees and mastered five languages beside my native Spanish. Moral of that story? I guess, forge ahead, celebrate your ethnicity and don't admit defeat.
6
It's disheartening to speak the three official languages of the country you live in plus two others and then being, in that same country, reprimanded for your lack of understanding of the language of a second generation immigrant who does not bother to learn any of the national or other European languages.
5
You oversimplify. Fact is, learning a new language is learning a new mode of expression, one which was not possible in the old. I love English, but I learned French, Italian, German, and now, Turkisch, and believe me, there are modes of expression out there of which even English (which is sublime in expressivity) is incapable. Blow your mind wide! Increase it. Explode its capabilities. Learn a language.
3
Whenever I hear about people yelling, "We are 'Murca! Speak English or go back to your country!" I cannot help but wonder...isn't English itself a foreign language to America?
8
Much of the article makes sense but the (gratuitous) reference to white supremacy seems a sweeping a condemnation. Multilingualism is great. Hopefully the US, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Guatemala, etc will promote multilingualism. Obviously the woman at the cash register is a jerk. Jerks are everywhere.
6
By studying Geometry AND Algebra your understanding of mathematical world became much more useful and functional. Why would it be any different with 2-3 very distinct languages?
I behave and see the world differently because of English, Korean and Spanish. I feel enriched because of them.
4
Clearly, a language is not just a set of sounds as many people seem to think, but a culture. I speak 5 and write fluently in four; several of my acquaitances speak more. My parents also spoke with us only or in Spanish, out native tongue, although they were fluent in English Portuguese and French. Why would they do otherwise? Another thing: Latinix is NOT a word. The words are Latino ot Latina. Spanish assigns a gender to every noun, whether you like it or not. Finally Latino is not a race ot a culture: it is short for Latinoamericano (someone from Latin America). The expression Latinix is an aberration which should be avoided by writers and, especially, educators who should know this. Just say Latin Americans.
7
Studies indicate that it's difficult for adults over the age of 60 to learn a foreign language, but it's a good exercise for an older brain. The best time to learn a foreign language is when you're a child, so we should introduce a few into all elementary school programs.
3
I was born in 1945 to German immigrants who met on the boat in 1928. German was my first language, but it was not good to speak English with a German accent in 1950 when I went to school. It was 5 years since war’s end, and the emotions and feeling towards Germans were still very raw even from teachers. I was picked on and bullied. I learned a thing or two about prejudice. That changed when my parents transferred me to a Catholic school. The abuse stopped.
Later in life, I married a German girl, and we taught our children German. Things had changed in the ensuing 30 years. Do I regret having learned German today? Good question. I don’t know. There’s no way for me to know what my life would have been like. Wasted thought. On the other hand, I’m glad I know the language today. What will this society look like 30 years from now? Given the demographics, maybe English will be the second language? I won’t be here.
1
There is a problem with making your children speak only in your native tongue at home. In most cases it means the parents don’t learn to speak English.
My husband and I only spoke English to our children. We needed the to learn the language ourselves. We only read English newspapers and books and watched TV
There is no reason for anyone who is a citizen or wants to become a citizen not to speak or understand the language.
63
No there is no such problem. I speak Spanish only to my kids everywhere (not just at home) and that didn’t prevent me from improving my English.
84
@Spaniard
You're dead right. There needn't be any trade-off whatsoever. I grew up in Singapore. While both my parents were very fluent in English, my mom never hesitated to speak to my siblings and me in Bengali and teach us the language. People need to be proud of their mother tongue or at least attempt to learn it. English might be widely spoken, and thus very useful, but it ain't everything.. Besides the US constitution doesn't state anywhere that there's any official language in the country. So people should be comfortable speaking whatever. This applies everywhere in the world actually.
92
@Marika I agree that people have to speak the language or languages of the place where they are living. But, it shouldn't prevent them from passing their own language on to their children.
I live in Catalonia, so I've learned both Catalan and Spanish, because I don't think the people here should have to change languages in order to deal with me. For me, it's a question of showing respect for the place you've decided to live in. If I moved to Bilbao, I would learn Basque (in fact, knowing I was going to go there for a weekend a few years ago, I learned everything I needed to know to order things in a bar or restaurant, buy things in a store, etc., so I wouldn't force any Basque person to have to switch to Spanish for me, even though they're 100% fluent in Spanish). If I went to Hawai'i, I would also learn enough Hawaiian to carry out everyday tasks at least.
With my children, I always spoke to them in English, even though they could see full well that I knew Catalan and Spanish, and by the time they were 6 or 7, they were fluent in all three languages. So, we should try to teach our children the things we're good at. My children benefited much more from being exposed to my native-level English than to my often-faulty Catalan and Spanish. Plus, infants and young children follow a one person-one language approach to language learning. They expect a given person to always interact with them in a given language. So, that person may as well use the language they know best.
27
My mother often told that my maternal. French educated, Sicilian grandmother had taught me enough of the most basic elements of both languages e.g. behavior, food, asking for help should I ever happen to get lost in our Williamsburg neighborhood, Little Italy, or in the S.Klein's Department store in Union Square. Consequently, at age four, I was very more, or very, very less, fluent in three languages. Admittedly, when I did get lost in Kein's, my French was useless, but I was saved by my bilingual-ness. Sadly, when Grandma passed away, my family lauded gift went with her.
1
I was sad to read the author only realized her mom was right, when she had to interpret at Costco, Goodwill and Walmart.
Speaking a second a language has afforded me professional advancement, the joy of listening to music in two languages and keeping my ethnicity alive at home.
155
@TATIANA Ethnicity is an interesting concept I've always struggled with. I grew up in academia--that's one of my cultures. My mother from Colombia would cook empanadas and frijoles at Christmas but the first thing she learned to cook ever was meatloaf. I married an Uruguayan who grew up in Brazil; he loves caiprinhas and asados. We are a mish-mash of cultures.
22
A tragedy really. . .
1
To me, the most important foreign language to learn is Latin
It teaches you grammar and sentence structure.
After you master it, it is easy to learn French , Italian and Spanish
1
I have always envied friends who fluently speak several languages, and switch fluidly between them in any conversation. However, English is the lingua franca, technical and scientific language of the world. There are more people learning English in China than speak English in the US! Like it or not, Esperanza never caught on, Klingon is limited to Trekkies, and Globish has firmly established itself. Yes, speak the language(s) of your origin, ancestral country, or just because you love them, but learn English as quickly as possible to progress in our global community and marketplace.
3
I had wanted to learn a second language all my life. I took Latin, then German in high school, a little French and more German in College, then Spanish off and on in night school for many years. But between my lack of facility at learning languages and my jumping around between them, I never developed more than a little vocabulary in all of them.
Then I moved to Mexico, and started seriously concentrating on learning Spanish. Now I am bilingual. My Spanish will never be flawless but I it works. Next on the agenda is to learn German, but I am sure it will never happen without a move to a German speaking country.
4
I came to this country in my late 30’s with a preteen son. I wanted to speak the language the English language since I am in a English speaking country . Thankfully my son learned quickly from school. I learned /practiced with him to better my English . The next thing I saw was, he lost our language and I mastered English . After almost 20 years he barely understands our language but my English surprised people a lot ,” how come I speak this good English ?“( reading the NYT and books lots of books helps too). So I don’t know if this was a good thing or not but I think it’s make sense to speak the language of the country where you are. I still speak my language and I translate for my son. As there many kids translate for their parents !
1
Though I applaud the study of languages - I am familiar with multiple languages myself - this article is (ironically) a quintessentially American interpretation of what "bilingual" means. First of all, Spanish is everywhere in the US, particularly in border states; the country itself is practically a bilingual space for Spanish speakers. When was the last time you went to a Home Depot where they didn't have Spanish signs?
Second, the author seems to admit she has problems speaking Spanish, which puts her "bilingualism" in perspective. When AOC says her "first language" is Spanish and then claims that she has difficulty with it, how is that her "first language"?
Thirdly, the author's experience is quintessentially American. Nobody in the US speaks my language, I cannot write in it, and nobody will understand me if I go to a store and talk in my native language (which I am in no way insulted by, because I am not from here ... in my culture, the visitor adjusts, not the other way around). So ... bilingualism the way the author experiences it is not really bilingualism but knowledge of Spanish in the United States. Some people here comment that only in the US is "bilingualism" a pejorative. It seems to me that speaking Spanish is a pejorative for some Americans and some kind of sign of worldliness to progressives, not bilingualism.
11
AOC, among many others, that speak a different native language at home that's not the same as the larger population can absolutely claim that to be their first language. Often times, children of immigrant parents experience "lost language" of their native language. Although this is an entirely larger conversation, AOC's experience of becoming "less" fluent in her first language does not deny her the right to say that Spanish was her first language.
5
For me personally, the prime advantage of multilingualism is that I can more easily separate words and meanings. It's easier for me to see the object and not the label. It's easier for me to see multiple meanings and nuances. As far as I know, this is objectivelty true, since I've read many similar comments by multilinguals.
3
I lived in Brazil and speak fluent Portuguese.
In the beginning, they couldn't understand me.
The next phase was they could understand me but immediately guessed I was American or European.
After several years, my accent improved enough that people guessed I was Argentinian which I took as a great compliment.
Learning the language as an adult I will never loose my accent.
And the Brazilians like Americans and were always welcoming to me unlike the many examples in this article.
Having said this, my advice to immigrants coming here, learn as much English as soon as you can. It is better for you economically. Not to mention the reality of those Americans not wanting to understand.
It caught my attention that a person has a green card but doesn't speak the language. Not always, but usually it takes at least five years to get a green card. There are exceptions such as marriage and obviously I don't know the circumstances in this case.
In addition, I am in high-tech and work with people from India. Some of my co-workers will speak their language in the office (there are a lot of languages in India).
In Brazil, I had a coworker from Australia. We would never speak English in the presence of our Brazilian coworkers.
6
"You can't really understand your own language until you learn another." I remember this quote, but can't find the author. Any help will be appreciated.
The quote is true. My high school Latin (I never got fluent, but I did learn some) helped me understand English vocabulary. I leaned Italian as a young child when my father was stationed the Embassy in Rome. I quickly forgot most of it when we moved back to the US, but enough of it stuck with me to help with my Latin in high school, and the Spanish I'm working on now.
Dad got stationed in Germany when I was about eighteen, and he sprung for a two-month immersion course for me to learn German. It worked, and I found surprising parallels with English. Some of the grammar is similar to older dialects of English, which helped with a university class on Shakespeare.
There is also the fact that language shapes a person's thoughts, and reflects the culture where it originated. That can assist in coping with an unfamiliar country and culture.
The mental exercise helps keep the brain sharp, and, last but not least, learning is just plain fun.
10
I grew up in a bi-lingual home in which an effort was made to deny me full access to my ancestral tongue - Yiddish. My American born mother was so fluent in Yiddish, she had been kept back a year in elementary school until her English was proficient. But my sister and I, like many of our generation, were purposely locked out of our rich linguistic heritage. As a result, I only know the most common Yiddish expressions, idioms and curses, without literacy or the ability to converse. And yet my limited knowledge continues to delight me and connect me to others who share my mother tongue.
7
I am multi lingual, not only by birth but opportunities to live and work in other countries. I love learning a new language as it helps with assimilation. It opens one's eyes and one's mind.
6
Like many Indian-Americans, I understood my parents speaking Bengali but always responded in English. It wasn't until I entered Barnard College and realized that many of my classmates spoke fluent Hebrew and weren't afraid to share their heritage and their religion with the world that I changed. I started speaking Bengali, stopped eating beef, and started my religious education. Although I also love to speak French, Bengali takes me home whereas French takes me abroad. I am intensely grateful that I do speak Bengali fluently. My mother, a retired pathologist, has vascular dementia and is starting to lose her English and is beginning to speak more and more in Bengali. I'm having to teach her caregivers some Bengali words as a result, and no mean feat in Indiana where my mom lives! My bilingualism opens my mind, and opens my heart to love.
10
I speak, read and write seven languages fluently and am close to mastering my most challenging, Mandarin.
Just kidding. I wish. But weren’t you impressed, maybe even a little jealous for that nanosecond?
10
@A. Simon When I was in college, I dated a boy who spoke (because of where his family had moved around as a child) Hungarian, Spanish, English,Hebrew and some Yiddish. I was always jealous.
6
Our world is getting smaller every day, and encounters between people of different language abilities grow more frequent. It's easy to insist that immigrants learn to speak English, and it's a practical advantage for them to do so. But easier said than done. We need to embrace our differences and welcome new people as they join with us in our nation. We've survived over two centuries of non-English speaking immigrants. And sooner or later they, or at least their children and grandchildren, become English speakers. We would ask for the same indulgence if we settled in another country.
4
@Brian As "ugly Americans," we "demand" the same indulgence when we're in another country.
2
In California, I'm told that speaking Spanish to a Latin American or a person of Latin American descent is an insult-- that it implies they don't know English, NOT that I would dearly love to improve my Spanish.
Is this really how Spanish speakers feel? It seems that there is a message that English is somehow the only language of educated people.
In truth, of course, Spanish is almost pure Latin, which was once considered the language of truly educated people, while English is pretty much a creole. How did the world turn so up side down?
7
I have no desire to become bilingual. I am perfectly satisfied that I speak (at least) 4 languages.
7
Growing up in San Antonio, raised by bilingual parents from El Paso, I was exposed to more than just English. Years later, my Spanish helped me land a job as a lawyer who helped undocumented immigrants, and I quickly improved with regular use. My family is such a mix of countries, the only consistent culture that united us was the Tejano one in which we lived. My best friend was Hispanic, yet spoke no Spanish, a fact that amused her parents immensely as they welcomed me in their home and spoke Spanish with me. Recently, a longtime friend, who is bilingual and of Hispanic descent mentioned that it bothers her when I, descended from non-Hispanic immigrants, speak “her” language. She mentioned cultural appropriation. How can I appropriate the culture in which I was raised? I hope more folks will encourage people of all ethnic makeups to become multi-lingual. I find it interesting that both the author and I have been criticized for speaking Spanish. She, because she is Hispanic, and I because I am not.
6
Retiring to Italy over a year ago after the death of my wife and learning Italian has enabled me to ultimately find another lovely woman, who knows no English. After a little over a year our first date was talking and walking in Verona for 9 hours in only Italian. I am very grateful for my second language.
10
Spanish is a beautiful and rich language. Years ago, I came upon an English language anthology filled with the translated short stories of some of the finest South American writers. I was so impressed. Two years ago, I started to study Spanish and now I can say how much more fun life is. We are limiting ourselves if we maintain a monolingual culture.
16
It is almost as some (many?) Americans pride themselves on being monolingual. One thinks immediately of the repeated efforts to make English the "national language." I am not fully bilingual in any sense, but I speak enough Spanish to get by comfortably in Spanish-speaking countries, and enough German to at least get by in Germany. Acquiring and trying to improve those skills took/takes work, but it has been a real boon when I travel. People appreciate it when you speak a bit of their language: it shows an interest in their culture. In an interconnected world, there's simply no excuse for being insular.
11
Language makes us human. The more languages we can speak the more human we become.
10
You have written this:
"You find truths in the in-between spaces of language, but never the right words to express them. "
And I ask you, why not? Why do you say you can "never" find the right words?
I say you can. Like you, I am an interpreter and I say you can.
When you love words and befriend them, you no longer have to search for them, they love you back and appear right in front of you at your beck and call.
Language is amazing, and we can use its different registers, from formal to vernacular depending on the situation. You can be didactic or painterly with it, again, depending on context.
Your article shows you have a significant interest in language, as do I. So, from one interpreter to another, I encourage you to reconsider what you said above.
There is beauty and joy in rendering accurately and fully a person's expressed communication into another language.
Language is the royal passport into the heart of the culture that created it. Sometimes it can do miracles.
oz.
7
Being bilingual is a beautiful thing. I learned Spanish as an adult, and graduated with a degree in the "lengua de Cervantes." It has opened an entire world of over 300 million people to me. My wife and I still speak Spanish to each other after 35 years of marriage, and I occasionally get glares from old white disapproving men. They not only want to bar native speakers from speaking Spanish, but they also want to deny my speaking the language I spent so many years studying in schools here in the good old US of A.
8
Early in my career I worked in 2 Spanish speaking countries. Each day my co- workers helped me learn Spanish. In Texas where I now live the ability to share information, stories and opinions in Spanish enriches my life and reminds me of the kindness of those who helped me become bi lingual. A kindness to foreigners in stark contrast to the words and actions of the current administration
7
Muchas gracias, Natalia.
4
I am thankful for being bilingual. Not perfect (grammar, intonation, etc) but conversationally and colloquially, pretty good.
I practice two languages regularly and most thankful for it, especially when I read articles like this!
A Secret Weapon in Dementia Prevention: The Bilingual Advantage.
I understand the cultural, personal and professional advantages of knowing two languages, but health plus!!! yes!
7
A decades-long-term study in the US around 20 years ago showed that while many migrant children struggled in school due to being bi-lingual, they excelled over their autochthonous (local American, monolingual) colleagues at university, as they had learned abstraction
(that is, a word is not identical to a thing, as there are at least two words for the same thing).
Abstraction helps at university-level theoretical analysis.
I remember a Japanese student of mine saying, "People who speak many languages, in Japanese we call them "multilingual". People who speak two languages, we call them "bi-lingual". People who speak only one language, we call them "Americans"."
11
We are blessed to have been taught three languages in school in sixties in the then state of Andhra Pradesh, India. They are Telugu ( mother Tongue ), Hindi and English. We didn’t understand its significance in our childhood but learnt them anyway.
Learning Hindi connected me not only to Hindi heartland but also to other people, who speak Marathi, Punjabi, Urdu, Marwari, Sindhi and Gujarati but can speak Hindi as well. As such I could be easily exposed to these linguistic groups.
Culturally there is nothing much difference between South India and the rest other than change in cuisine and some minor changes in the customs and religious practices.
Learning English in my childhood enabled me to connect globally without any problem whatsoever especially after my retirement in December 2006.
I lived and toured sixteen states in America much more than those in India without any inconvenience even though there is slight change in accent and in the spellings of certain words even.
Our brain is many times more than a super computer. We hardly use 10 % of our brain, so sad. Learning various languages keeps our brain not only sharp but also live better. Learning mathematics will make our lives still better.
8
This is what is so strange about America.
Everywhere in the world to speak many languages is regarded as a plus, a benefit, a feather in one’s hat.
But in America, especially here in the South, when I speak my native French with a family member in a store, I am looked upon with scorn.
Scorn.
Strange is this behavior that tries to shame you when you are actually better.
Speaking more than one language is better.
24
@Pascale Luse I am not doubting your experience, but is it really 'scorn'?
Perhaps more: insecurity, inadequacy, or an inferiority complex while simultaneously looking down on anyone non-US-American, paranoia, even deep-rooted racism, fear of the unfamiliar?
5
Of the many great gifts my father gave me, perhaps greatest among them was his encouraging me to take Spanish in high school back in the early 1970's. He served in the navy, and had spent much time in the Caribbean, including pre-Castro Cuba. He told me that if I could speak both English and Spanish I would be able to communicate with just about anyone in the Western Hemisphere. That conversation has led me on a distinct trajectory that included majoring in Spanish in college and eventually becoming "officially" bilingual in the eyes of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. As I near the end of my teaching career, I recognize those moments described by Ms. Sylvester - the joyful and the painful - and I remember from time to time to thank my late father for richness and wonder I have been allowed to glimpse in those "in-between spaces of language". It is here that I discover daily our common humanity, and the dignity of personhood we share.
10
In Puerto Rico in my youth many primary schools began in Spanish with English as a subject. In 5th grade, the formula was reversed and Spanish was taught as a subject while English was used for all other subjects. Once in high school, you still had to take 2 years of a third foreign language. Imagine how much better a country we would be if we followed this approach.
In the US it was my decision to send my children to Montessori pre-school in Spanish and summer Spanish camp at Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota (the gem of all summer camps)every summer through high school. In college they also pursued study abroad in Spain. They speak flawless English & unaccented Spanish and are far better citizens as a result. If only public schools in the US followed the PuertoRican model and substituting any language not just Spanish all children would be better equipped to succeed in a shrinking world.
12
When I first visited Paris in the mid 90’s not many people spoke English and I did not expect them to. This is part of the joy of visiting another country. My rudimentary French was adequate. Now so many French people speak English and I asked my French friend who lives there about the change. She said English is the language of international business. If you want to work, you have to learn English. Her 11 year old son speaks basic English and will most likely be fluent soon.
7
@Olivia Even in the 70's, when I first visited Paris, an astonishing number of Parisians spoke English. (I had taken a year of college French and was far from proficient in French.) Last year, my husband and I spent a month in France and Belgium and became used to people responding "Un peu" if we asked if they spoke English - only to follow up with excellent English. I mistook one girl (a waitress) in Bruges as an American, maybe from California, as her English was completely unaccented. When I asked where she learned English, she just said, "School." Sad that Americans are so insular and stubborn about learning another language.
4
Thank you for a thought-provoking column. One of the fascinating aspects of Montreal, where I have lived most of my life, is that there many people who comfortably speak both French and English, and a third language such as Italian or Chinese. You are right that remaining adequately useful, never mind adept, in the third (although often the mother tongue) is a constant struggle, though. But, it is also true that thinking in a different language introduces a different perspective on many things.
13
The greatest experience in my life, easily, was the 4 years I spent in Paris. Not only could I (in Gertrude Stein's words) be "alone with my English," but in learning French, embedded with its glorious literary, historical and theological mysteries, I also made enriching discoveries about the culture which would have otherwise remained unknown.
164
@Bella Wilfer - Every hour I spent in high school and college French was worth it just to hear Celine Dion sing in French and get it.
13
We Americans conveniently forget our history. Much of the American south west was part of Mexico. There is a reason why there are so many cities with names like San Francisco, Los Angeles, El Paso, San Diego, Santa Fe, etc. The easterners were the migrants and invaders. It must have been doubly hard not to be permitted to speak your native language when you lived in a city or state with a Spanish name.
9
@KG Mt Trump, on his recent visit to Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, asked whether they had entered the US legally.
3
I suspect there is a great deal of covert jealousy among whites in America when they see how many Latinos have remained bilingual, because their own languages and heritage were stripped from them without hesitation in the 19th century.
My four grandparents, for instance, spoke fluent German ... until World War I ended that. Verboten! as they say. Thus I was raised monolingual. I say, "Go Latinos with all my blessings to speak and know two languages!"
12
@Anthony - Interesting thought about jealousy. Every Latino living in my building with one exception requires a child to translate for them because they can't speak any English. We have a Mexican bakery/store in my area and no one there speaks any English either.
3
We (The US) are the only country in the world which uses the word "bilingual" as a pejorative.
9
As a bilingual who speaks Japansese and Korean I totally agree your view point.
8
You not only make a highly necessary point with this opinion piece, you also make a beautiful one:
You hear the sound of someone being heard in your voice, and the sound of someone being unseen in the silence.
So powerful...como se dice 'goosebumps?' And how is it that after seven years of Spanish I don't know how to say it already?
8
“Escalofrios” :)
4
What do you call a person who speaks 2 languages? Bilingual
What do you call a person who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual
What do you call a person who speaks 1 language? American.
11
Natalia,
Gracias amiga por tus palabras. I can sooooo relate to every single sentence in your article. Thank you for sharing and caring.
Isabel.
6
I would love to be bilingual. But whether it's geography (Latin America is close to us), air travel (my relatives from Ireland got off a boat), or just ethnic barrios, the fact that Hispanics have kept their native language to an extent that previous generations of immigrants never did. I still think it's so important that we speak a common language.
And no amount of ethnic pandering or identity politics articles by the NYT will change my mind.
5
@Dennis That's what you got from this article? Wow.
3
As a Latin American I can understand where this writer is coming from. There is a lack of interest in learning a second language in the US. However, having lived in NY enclaves most of my life, I do recognize the fact that many immigrants who come here (not only hispanics, but asians, europeans, etc) stick to their enclaves and many have no interest in learning English. I believe a lack of interest in other languages in the US by Americans is an issue, but the lack of interest of learning English by immigrants an even bigger one. There is only so much a recipient country should do to welcome you.
3
Well, I live in a Central American country, with a fairly recent influx of (mostly) US retirees. And they mostly live in gringo enclaves, some gated, join groups of other english speakers, eat at restaurants where the staff speak some english, and basically act exactly like you criticize recent immigrants to the US.
Its hard to leave your country, your culture, and your language, and learn a new one.
As someone who is trying to assimilate into a latin culture, I have tremendous admiration and sympathy for those immigrants who come to the US similarly handicapped.
2
I learned Spanish in high school and over the years as a M.D. have found it useful. In retirement, I decided to return to intensive study of the language and it has enriched my life. I still work part-time. Many of my hispanic patients visibly relax when I speak to them in their native language. Being bilingual makes me a better human.
20
The beautiful thing about being bilingual is that it also shapes the way we think. You will have to think in another language which makes you be more smarter and creative. One of the beautiful thing that can happen to someone is having the opportunity to be able to navigate in between more than a language!
8
Even in Europe, being bilingual is considered something to be pursued. Small countries compared to America, they are close enough together for a short train ride to transport you to a different culture. Consistently I noticed some pick up smatterings of language and others have a harder time.
I know one family there who divided it up; you speak French, I’ll do Spanish and Italian,and we’ll both do English. When I’m at dinner, it’s English. ANd that’s for me, the American. It’s the language of “Business.” Because with all my years of studying language, there was no acceptance of it as being a necessary skill with consistent effort. Our educational system didn’t demand a proficiency level and taught understanding that it’s practice practice practice.
When I go to Europe, I want to use my skills. They work pretty much everywhere, except at dinners...where I miss out. And that’s sad.
5
Speaking more than one language is a gift.
Other languages open our eyes to the wonderful world around us and the candystore of cultures. We are better people when we can speak more than one language.
7
Language is a utilitarian tool. Polyphony is admirable, but my German immigrant ancestors quickly learned English and found that German was not utilitarian. Clinging to the language would have isolated them from the culture in which they lived. Our ethnic traditions continue to honor them and our heritage, but their native language is not a necessary part of our lives. Becoming functional in Spanish is more useful in the US - because it is utilitarian.
5
Canada has two official languages. More than half of Québécois speak English. Most Canadians outside of Quebec don’t speak French. It’s too bad. Canada’s first settlers were French, and most people forget it.
French is the official language of the province.
As for being bilingual, it’s a clear advantage. It’s true some are more gifted in acquiring a new language, but a little effort goes a long way.
Learning another language enhances your thinking process and one’s memory. It requires effort, but the rewards are worth it.
7
I grew up speaking two languages - Hindi & Englush. When I fell in love with a man from another culture I decided to learn his language before marriage. My in-laws & the whole extended family spoke primarily Bengali & I knew that while I could get by I'd never really be a part of the family without being comfortable in their first language. So I learnt my third language as an adult. It took a while (the nouns are the easy part, the verbs kill you!) but finally I got proficient enough to pass as a native.
That was 20 years ago. I'd love to learn another language... Spanish & Sanskrit are the two I'm exploring.
As any of us who speaks more than one language knows, every language is like looking inside at a room from a different window - it gives a different view. There are some words/phrases that just cannot be translated... not with all the connotations.
13
Although comments here are largely about how great it is to be bilingual (by people who are bilingual and proceed to tell us all about themselves), this article is instead more specifically about a no-win situation presented to first and second generation immigrants who come from Spanish-speaking countries to the USA. In that regard I largely agree with the author, but would add that an immigrant's failure to learn the principal language in the USA hurts him or her, just like it would in any country. Which is why, although I support the freedom to speak other languages, I disagree with initiatives that cater to Spanish-only interactions and thus discourage the learning of English. I think it impedes the social and economic progress of the very people these initiatives are trying to help.
As for bi- or multi-lingualism generally, I guess I'm about the only one here who thinks its benefits are somewhat exaggerated, and often quite superficial in fact. Sure it's nice to know other languages, for convenience at times or as a party trick, but in my experience it has far less mind-expanding potential than say, working in a new field of employment, jumping into a new culture (e.g. from urban to rural, or white-collar to blue-collar), assuming a leadership position, or any other way of rocking your own perspective through direct experience.
3
If you want to travel, competence in the languages where you are going are helpful. I have travelled in Germany and Holland now to places not usually visited by Americans and had a nice time because I could speak a little German.
The locals, many who spoke no English, genuinely appreciated my efforts. The ability to communicate in a different language I find really opens up new experiences
5
There is research to support that bilingualism enhances cognitive abilities.
Google it.
Too many scholarly articles and books to cite here.
7
@Greg
Understanding another language fluently makes another culture’s music come alive, their poetry mean something, their fears and desires more relatable. It is overwhelmingly powerful, deeply rewarding, and something that cannot be explained to those who didn’t have the privilege or desire to become bilingual.
4
Nonsense. Languages are a major plus. I speak and have worked in seven. The trick is to associate particular languages with particular activities, e.g. Spanish at home, English at school.b
4
An old quote that's always worth remembering:
Every American should be fluent in at least two languages, and one of them has to be English.
(It's my personal opinion that newscaster English should be used with strangers, and that regional, ethnic and foreign "flavors" should be used when a little color ADDS to social lubrication, but never when it causes friction. I also favor Cronkite's English over the shapeless thing used by Ira Glass wannabes, but I don't want to go too far down that nuanced road in this note. Refer to H. Higgins on this matter.)
2
Although I can feebly muddle through French, German, Hebrew, and a bit of Italian, I am simply not multilingual, or even bilingual.
And that’s a big regret. Language, besides being practical, opens up new worlds. And it’s good for the brain too!
Many Americans bizarrely view English-only as somehow morbidly patriotic.
9
Language structure seems as if it were designed by a randomizer. My first language is English and we know how weird that is (drive on the parkway, park on the driveway as an example). My second is Spanish, Cuban Spanish. But go to Spain with that - particularly Barcelona - and you might as well speak Chinese! And don't get me started on the difference in Latin American countries where in one you are asking for a public bus and using the same words in another you are asking for a prostitute! Third, is marginal, and is French. Where we have complete words and sentences, we just don't pronounce the first part or the last part and sometimes the middle part. Lithuanian I have studied in Lithuania. No prepositions so each noun has to have 7 distinct forms. And you would hope the masculine and feminine forms of adjectives and nouns in Spanish and French would have some effect on the same in Lithuanian. Nope. Just random. Now I am studying Turkish. Know what the most common verb in English is. Yep. "Is", or, more correctly, "to be". Does not exist in Turkish. And, where is the verb in Turkish? At the end of the sentence, always. So, if you want to tell someone your house is on fire, run, you can't properly say Run, your house is on fire. Thai? The gender of all of those nouns and adjectives? Depends on the gender of the speaker! How does that work with transgender, I don't have a clue. It is, however, all interesting, still at 68.
6
@John Longino in Barcelona people primarily speak Catalan, not Castellano (aka Spanish).
2
Languages are all interesting.
But if the world spoke one language...
It would be a better place.
3
"My parents refused to let my sister and me forget how to speak Spanish by pretending they didn’t understand when we spoke English."
My parents didn't use this tactic, but they certainly spoke Spanish at home. They spoke it because it was the only language they knew well. English was used only outside the home. At home Spanish was spoken "de rigueur" and outside "de nécessité"!
2
I love the way spoken languages overlap with music, art, and the universal language of mathematics. The more languages one understands, the more liberated one is.
6
When I applied for entry to graduate school, many years ago, one requirement for entry was competence in two foreign languages.
Though I had a BA in German from another university, I was required to take a test in proficiency in the German language to meet the new university's standard.
After more than fifty years, I still try to express my thoughts in several different languages with all the different cultural contexts they involve.
Of course, I have to have several different dictionaries to account for the fact that, after so many years, my vocabulary is diminished.
5
During a month-long visit to LA this summer, I noticed that "bilingual" is often used as a euphemism for 'spanish-speaking' meaning that people who only speak spanish are sometimes described as 'bilingual.' No other language qualified for this description in my experience this summer in California. When language becomes politicized like that, it ironically discourages genuine bilingualism and encourages the manipulation of language.
8
I’m always jealous of kids who through parentage and where they live learn two or more languages. It opens up a whole new world. In London a friend of our daughters at preschool who had a Hungarian father and Greek mother spoke those two languages plus English at the age of four! Our favourite holiday destination is South Tirol which is 70% German speaking and 30% Italian. And then of course you have Switzerland and Belgium. Even the U.K. has significant bilingualism in Wales. Bilingualism is an unalloyed good and a great advantage for those who have it.
12
I wonder if Ms. Sylvester’s parents learned English.
6
I have one question for Ms. Sylvester, Did your parents learn English after living in this country for many years?
6
I am envious of people who are bilingual. It is a gift of which people should be justly proud.
5
Born and raised in the USA, English is my first language. But I chose to become bilingual in French. Having the second language provided me international opportunities in my career. My bosses saw my advantages of having an understanding of people of a different culture. They saw that that experience permitted me to perform better in other situations where the language was neither French nor English. If anybody out there has the opportunity to become bilingual, trilingual, or more, go for it, American xenophobia be damned.
13
I'm a native American but speak Spanish fairly well. Learning a new language opens the door to insights into another culture through literature and art. It is enormously enriching.
There is a saying, "Learn another language and gain another soul." So true.
9
When I came to Florida my first job interview asked if I was bilingual. I told them I was pretty good at a second language having attended University there. I was immediately given some Spanish clients with whom I couldn't communicate. I told my supervisor who said I lied in my interview about being bilingual. I told them I spoke German and had gone to University there. I did have one German client while I was in that office.I assume their next interviews were more specific.
9
You don't know or understand your own language until you learn another language to compare it too. I learned this while learning the German language. It gives a deeper understanding of phrases we use every day and the various derivatives and origins.
8
@USMC1954 - I'm not following you. I took 3 languages at the same time in high school (French, German, and Russian) and then took 3 at the same time in community college for two years (French, Japanese, Hebrew). I picked up a fair amount of Spanish travelling through Central America for a year and then went to another community college for a year of ASL. Now? Trying to learn Samoan but I'm finding it impossible.
French and German might have some similarities to English but nothing I learned in Japanese, Russian, Hebrew, ASL, or Samoan have helped me understand my own language better. Goodness - Hebrew doesn't have capital letters, an indefinite article, doesn't print the vowels, and they write backwards. Well, actually we write backwards since their language came first but still doesn't help me understand everyday phrases.
@tom harrison I think the writer means that studying another language and the contrasts it has with your language (as noted in your comment) helps you know your language better - even as you learn another language.
3
This article is a bit deceptive --- I work in a Spanish immersion program in a fairly affluent community in Oregon, and parents are clamoring for their children to learn a second language, namely Spanish. I myself learned Spanish as an adult, and I have never experienced any bias in being able to speak the language well at any time. I also understand people in the states wanting others to speak English; it IS our nation's language. English is hard to learn, but it is very important to learn the language of the country in which one chooses to live! That being said, I lost interest in French as a young person after the rough treatment I received in Paris as I struggled to communicate and expand my rudimentary French. We all need to remember that unfriendly conduct says more about the person enacting the poor behavior than anyone else.
2
@Susan Masson I have been to France probably 6 or 7 times, including last year for a month. Never has a single person been rude to me over my rudimentary French (or even when I just used English). I have concluded that stories of the French being rude to Americans who don't speak French arise from rude Americans demanding that the French speak English.
1
This article really hit home in many ways. As a multilingual first generation American, I have also strived to pass on the gift of language to my children, feigning a lack of fluency in English until their language abilities had the opportunity to take root. It was a significant struggle, but one that has paid off to enable the gift of another (not “foreign”) language to be passed on to another generation. Fluency in another language also passes on admission to a gateway of culture at a level difficult to replicate absent fluency in that language.
Though achieving a high level of fluency as a “native” speaker of Spanish, from parents of different Spanish-speaking countries, (including one with a competing language and ethnic identity - Catalonia) I have also consistently had my Spanish parsed for any sign of “foreignness” abroad. In varying degrees from harmless commentary to righteous professorial “correction,” the feeling of being foreign everywhere has, at times, been slightly frustrating.
I have also been a court interpreter, and have seen firsthand the seemingly systematic disdain for those who did not have the benefit of comprehending matters which affected their rights and their lives going forward. The “system” not only did not slow down for them, but the interpreters are often not given the luxury of explaining what is going on to those they serve.
I cherish the gift of fluency in multiple languages. It is a devotion worth the time and effort to cultivate.
7
Some people learn languages easily and some not so easily. I fit in the last category, but all would have been mightily improved if I'd made an earnest attempt. The sentence I most relate to in the article is the mother correcting every sentence. This proved off- putting to me because the language I was intended to speak was my parents' native German during the War Years. To say that this was not socially acceptable is a definition of understatement. Moreover, I could not imagine myself ever crossing that ocean to actually be obliged to speak it. Clueless, indeed.
In any case, I can take credit for reading Gothe and Schiller in the original at college. I can bumble my way about in a basic and flawed German. I, too, have been able to help translate now and again. The instance that makes me smile is helping a German tourist get directions from an Italian woman in Florence. I translated into English and the Italian woman knew it. Satisfactory to us all.
I wish I had looked at language as a fun code. I wish I had understood hat I did not have to speak German perfectly. As it is, I can sometimes do the Bavarian perfectly and was once mistaken for a native German speaker in Cologne. A moment that would have made my mother proud.
6
I have published two essays about how the differences in the grammar of English and Spanish reflect and influence the cultures, "Living in the Subjunctive Mood" and "Speaking in the Passive Voice", and how difficult it is to truly translate meaning if you miss the implications of the grammar, in the online Syndic Literary Journal at syndicjournal.us. I have been fascinated by this topic for a long time, and still find it is worthy of further exploration and discussion.
7
@Elisabeth Miller Sorry, I gave wrong titles for both essays! They are "Life in the Subjunctive Mood " and "Speaking in a Passive Voice". Silly me!
1
@Elisabeth Miller I once read an article that illustrated the cultural difference you mention. The English was, "I missed the bus" and the Spanish was, "The bus left me." Both are true.
1
I don;t know but this article is more about discrimination rather than enrichment of being bi-lingual. I am bi-lingual and I do not speak my mother tongue outside the home unless really needed for work or such. The language here in the the US is English and I do believe that people should at least try to learn and speak it even if it is broken English. I am not a person of “ mixed salad “ culture but a melting pot culture. Call me old fashioned but if you choose out of whatever reason to move to another county I do believe you should learn the language.
And yes there is a lot of discrimination against dialects if it makes English less understandable due to accents. I experienced it many times and I am sure will continue to do so. But I speak English and that is the language I communicate in.
8
I always regret that my first generation Italian American mother didn’t teach me Italian when I was a child. In the 30s when she was growing up being a American was very important to immigrants.
When mom married the whitest guy she could find and moved from up to downstate NY she began to lose her Italian.
Her cursive was impressive also, it was mandatory to write cursive in school.
6
The author is blessed to be a "native speaker" in two languages.
I am learning German, just started my fifth year and only now achieving a level of competence. I am envious of those who grew up speaking English in everyday New York and German or Italian or Spanish etc at home.
Americans lose out by not really developing a competence in other languages as it opens the mind to differing viewpoints and experiences.
It amzes me as I travel, the Netherlands last year, that almost everybody is competent in three languages, there Dutch, English and German. I also received a different level of respect because I could express myself in German.
My only wish is that I started out earlier. My mom "made" me take Spanish in high school instead of German so I resisted. I'm in my 50s now, and think the intervening years would have been better with more language skills, plus it seems I'm not too bad at it.
I would really like to learn Dutch but classes on that are hard to come by. So, since I have some fundamentals already, maybe learn Spanish for real.
My biggest observation...you need to learn from a native speaker. That is the only way to pick up the nuance. Language is about exchanging ideas, not just saying words in a different language with English grammar. That doesn't work
6
@J - Even learning from native speakers can be a problem. I have Samoan neighbors and it turns out that the older generation uses a t sound and the younger ones now use a k sound.
And heaven help anyone who would have tried to learn English from my grandfather. He had his own unique accent unlike any other American I have ever met.
3
Thank you for this precise and moving piece of writing.
6
Thank you for this article. So deep.
It sickens me that Americans speak only one language. When I travel, I marvel at how citizens of other countries speak two and sometimes three languages - an attempt to better understand the world.
One-language people have a unidimensional view of the world. As you say, when speak another language you can "read between the lines. Thank you for your article.
6
I was born in Palestine, which later became Israel.
All the children in my family learned German as our first language, and we all learned Hebrew in kindergarden and in school.
We spoke Hebrew among ourselves, but the grown ups - our parents, their brothers, sisters and all the family - kept on speaking German.
I keep my German language skills by attending a weekly class of German speaking, reading and writing.
At least our daughters, who lived with us in Forest Hills, NY as kids in the 1970's, know their English with no Israeli accent.
7
Language is also how we feel. I am a psychologist and am unfortunately functionally monolingual, though I have studied French and Spanish over the years, and have acquired 5 words of Russian from a former co-worker. Our deepest feelings are coded in our native languages and in the dream symbols of our native cultures. People often dream in their native languages. When I work with bilingual people, I will ask them to write the dream in their native language and bring it in, then we can work on the meaning of the words, situation or symbols without having it pre-distilled by squeezing it into English. We can also look at effect of degree of cultural immersion or loss-- for example, if your mother or grandmother [from the old country] had such a dream, what would it mean, etc.?
7
@KG -- Translation is generally treated as word for word, but it is not. The words of each language have no exact equivalent in the other.
The words are freighted with implications and ambiguities that are different from those in the other languages.
They are used in patterns, that have customary uses that are different in each language.
In complex matters, I've sometimes used two translators, one to do the first official, and the other to tell me on the side what other implications and possible meanings are in what was said. Sometimes the translators have disappeared into complex discussion, and then turned to us with something entirely new and better.
This is why the art of translating literature gets so testy. Some of the best parts of the original are the very things that don't translate.
On top of all of that, language patterns reflect culture patterns of thought. Those implications are in there too. One example would be the Japanese word for "obligation" which is so freighted with meaning that a former Governor of Hawaii wrote an entire book about what that meant to him.
11
Living in Miami for 20 years I've noticed the strain between those who speak Spanish and those who don't; in the grocery store, in Target, in schools. I had lived in Spain for many years, moved there without having ever really spoken a word of Spanish. In the 80's, when we lived there, there was hardly a person who spoke English. I became acutely aware of how hard it was not to be understood. And because I love to tell stories, and to be told stories, I missed out on a lot. I worked hard to learn the language. So moving to Miami I was fortunate that I could communicate with those who were struggling to learn English. I guess it could be called empathy?! The divisions between Spanish speakers in Miami and those who don't speak Spanish still exist. And often I find myself trying to help forge the bridge. What I do know that having learned another language has opened up my world tremendously.
16
Bilingualism in a nation is also a bane. Just ask residents of Canada or Belgium. Laws and other government documents have to be prepared in two languages. Then there is the lack of coordination in the armed forces between units that speak one language versus the other. That is why the US has to carry the brunt of the burden of supporting NATO; there is no common European language.
Carrying two different languages also threatens societal unity. Belgium is at risk of splitting in two, with Flanders being absorbed by France and Walloonia by the Netherlands. Quebec has always required careful handling. Nations do experience stress tests over time, so the breakup of these nations is inevitable.
2
@Kevin Blankinship Wouldn't the break up of Belgium go the other way? Why would France take Flemish speakers and the Dutch take French-speakers?
2
Someone once said to me that a language isn't simply a means of communication: It's a way of looking at the world. In learning to speak a second language, I found that to be absolutely true. Every language has words that are unique to it and tell you much about a people or culture.
An example is the German word "Fleiss," which is also an adjective, "fleissig." It means hard working, industriousness, responsible and reliable all wrapped into one. It's a very common word; one of the highest compliments you can pay someone in the German-speaking world is to call him or her "fleissig" or to say they have "Fleiss." The unique word is a powerful reflection of German culture and worldview.
11
Xenophobia and racism are woven into American culture. I have lived in many places and there is racism everywhere, but nowhere is it embedded as in the US. Language is simply the cudgel by which it is expressed.
13
@SpyvsSpy -- I've spent time in places far more racist than the US, and both open and unapologetic about it. Sometimes it isn't even a classic racial difference, as with the feelings of Japanese and Koreans for each other as nations.
In others they are proud of it, as when my father-in-law showed me where they'd used Japanese dead from WW2 as fertilizer. He told me incidents, numbers in each place, and how well things grew from that. The hate rolled off him, and any Japanese tourist so unwise as to come around would have felt it too.
Humanity has a heavy burden to overcome, we've barely started, and the US is far from the worst.
3
@Mark Thomason
Thanks Mark. I only know what I know. My experience has been entirely in the West. I'm certain their are more egregious examples.
2
I lived in Argentina, in various province(s) surrounding the province of Salta, located in the northern region of Argentina for little more than 2 years. Every Argentine that I attempted to speak with in any public space only gave me simple, concise and most importantly, empathetic directives to communicate effectively within their own local dialects. Why do Americans feel the need to prioritize their “first” language? How can we justify racism, when it’s really only hiding behind a warped form of “patriotic” entitlement? Such behavior is repulsive, and inhuman. The true reason, I believe, may be that Americans are too ignorant, impatient and intolerant of their own linguistic abilities. Fear of the unknown drives the ignorant mad. Shame on us for not empathizing with immigrants, refugees and with those seeking asylum in America. I feel disheartened upon reading about Americans that demonstrate nothing but the lack acceptance of culturally diverse people, many of whom who are only attempting to forge but a small niche in America. I am ashamed of such “Americans.” There is nothing American about intolerance. I only hope we can learn to become as adaptive and gifted as the wonderful people who seek citizenship, refuge and acceptance in this country.
9
Why is Spanish sacred? I speak Spanish fairly well, but I am fluently bilingual in two other languages, English and another, my native language.
This article is not about being bilingual. It's another politicized article about immigrants (who speak Spanish). Why don't we discuss the Chinese? They wouldn't dream of not learning English.
If it were up to me, I would make English the official language of the US. That would help Latinos (and others) who don't speak English, and therefore get marginalized. It would force them to learn English. That would remove a certain amount of discrimination.
9
I was introduced to Mexico by a Canadian student who was an exchange student in the Yucatan. Later, in an interview with
Global Affairs, he was asked "How's your french?"
He replied, "not great, but I can chair a meeting in spanish."
He got the job.
Please write about teaching spanish as a second language.
My ESL experience was helpful. Phonics works.The sounds are building blocks.
I see so many foreigners who are frustrated by teachers who make it complicated. Keep it simple. Phonics, five verbs,
present tense and a good phrase book are what's need to get
started.
Once you get going, you'll discover that Mexicans have a rapier wit. It is a language rich with satire and irony.
6
My ancestors ...... wish the Italian dialects we all heard as kids around the holiday dinner table or in greetings on the street with fellow paisanos was taught to us.
My gram Jesse died when I was 3 and I am still amazed that I recall our little conversations in Italian. I knew I wasn’t speaking English but I was able to use both languages w her. Sometimes she would speak in Italian and I would answer in English.
But her 9 kids .... my aunts and mom and uncles refused to teach us the language. They all used it like a “ secret code” in front of us kids so we didn’t know what they were discussing.
By the time I was 8 all I could remember were short derogatory phrases and a lot of “hex “ hand signals.
My other gram would call me a Brutia when I misbehaved. That being a reference to the original tribe that lived in mountainous Calabria.
My oldest kid took Italian in school and would laugh at my use of dialect.
Why we never required bilingual education in our curriculum must be based in RACISM. We didn’t have a word for it when public education was devised for the masses immigrating.
We are a very sad disillusioned country with all our facade of collective national lies coming to roost in our loss of noble causes and welcoming rhetoric.
6
@nursejacki -- "My other gram would call me a Brutia when I misbehaved. That being a reference to the original tribe that lived in mountainous Calabria."
Right. It isn't just words. It is a whole culture they came from and express. It is a way of thinking, not just a way of speaking, complete with backstory like Brutia.
But think, if we really could be bilingual, we would be enriched with not just talking as convenient, but with the whole culture of another place and other times.
Sometimes I read foreign novels for the pleasure of the culture they demonstrate. It is as much fun as the story itself, sometimes more. Recently I found "My Sister, the Serial Killer: A Novel" by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I strongly recommend it on many levels. I think we'll see imitations of its structural ambiguity, but also the culture itself is so well explained.
5
I live in France, speak French, ok German and am studying Serbian as my wife is Serbian. The author was very lucky, my French mother spoke only English to me out of worry that at 5 years old, I would not learn English fast enough. I had to learn French all over at 26. The author should thank her mother every day. Its reassuring to read also from the comments, bilingual people know there is more benefit than just the second language, it opens the mind. We get the same prejudiced, ignorant attitude from the Anglos here; often, they don't even know they are doing it; like Trump saying he's not prejudiced. Small world.
7
Thank you for writing this! Now a request: Ms. Sylvester and NYT, please publish this in Spanish as well!
Yesterday, as I was teaching my music students a French-Cajun song (a part of our "American" heritage), I tried to relate some of the French words to Spanish and English to make it easier for the kids to understand. Despite having several hispanic students (including some very recent arrivals), few of them would admit that they understood the Spanish in front of their peers, and it dawned on me that they had been instructed not to reveal this part of their identity. How sad. I want to post this in Spanish next to my classroom door so that visiting parents know that their diversity is welcome in my classroom, and to encourage them to do as your parents did to preserve their children's gift of Bilingualism!
8
I was fortunate during my working career to work with Chinese, Muslims, Filipinos, and Indians. Almost without exception they were wonderful to work with and get to know. I have little respect for those xenophobes who want everyone to be like themselves. I’ve also been studying Italian for several years and have an appreciation for the color another language can bring to speech.
4
"The journeying back and forth" -- as a bilingual adult who was a bilingual child (French and English), I recognize what you describe so beautifully. I still routinely translate everything back and forth in my mind, in my dreams, and then in my living experience when I'm in a Francophone or Anglophone environment. It was easy to add Spanish as an adult, allowing me to communicate with so many fellow Americans and also to read Cervantes, Garcia Lorca and Rulfo in the original.. Now my grandchildren in California are bilingual Spanish-English: what endures, what is shared, what is transmitted above all is the thrilling ability to "journey back and forth" --
3
don't quite understand the point she's making. none of the points she's made is related to bilingualism per se, but the social stigma attendant to publicly speaking a language deemed pariah in a country recalcitrant in sticking to its melting pot model to assimilation particularly unforgiving when it comes to a growing and culturally resistant minority's language. not what I was expecting when I first read the title. fairly disappointing in its lack of insight.
3
I am Bilingual , and our Son and Daughter in Law are trilingual.
Our Presidential contender Pete Buttigieg is a Polygot. While out President trump speaks only one , English not even properly.
It is very common for Europeans to be multilingual.
Earlier they start better off they are to learn faster.
America of today is more of a multiracial, multiethnic Country .
Youth of today I hope are encouraged from home to learn at least a second language if not more.
8
@B.Sharp Africans tend to be multilingual as well speaking the colonizers language plus one or two indigenous languages.
4
@Debruska
Yes indeed, that is fantastic !
1
@B.Sharp Yes, it's ironic that Trump fans - those most likely to demand that everyone in this country "speak English!" - revere a man who barely speaks English himself.
3
I’ve always envied others their ability to slip in and out of another language. It’s a skill non-English speakers seem to have mastered so well. The people who demand that everyone speak English here are the same ones who travel to a foreign country and expect everyone to speak English there too!
2
Because they have closed minds and are lazy. Learning a language takes effort and mental flexibility.
1
I was raised trilingual, French, English and Italian, then we moved to Germany and we all made the effort of learning German, then l moved to Spain and l was determined to speak it perfectly and I suspect l succeeded because no one detected l wasn't Spanish. I also lived in the US and l was appalled when l discovered how many Latinos didn't speak English and made no effort to learn it! l consider this attitude very disrespectful towards the country that has offered asylum. I was also struck at how many Americans tried to communicate in some Spanish though they had never been to a Spanish speaking country! This was way back in the 60's and 70's. Is it too much to pretend that when you move to a new country you should have the courtesy to learn how to communicate in the local language?
2
The unwillingness to learn is a human character of people who are incurious.
I am learning German, and astonished when I come across Americans that lived in Germany for a decade at a US military base and didn't know two words of German.
I was in Rotterdam for a week and already started trying to speak Dutch. That it is between English and German helped a lot, but the biggest factor is my willingness to try.
3
Wife is from Germany. When I turned 40 I decided to finally learn the language. Now I can finally hold a conversation with her 90 year old father. That alone has made it worth it. He's also kind enough to revert from his Oberfranken dialect to high German.
6
It is a disgrace that our school systems don't do a better a job of support bilingual students. They have every right to be educated, at an early age, in the grammar and spelling of both languages. The crime here is that bilingualism, which is such a profound gift, ends up with shame on one side or the other, with the rich legacy of that language deferred until elective courses in middle or high school.
Why can't we be like Canada and embrace fully bilingual education from kindergarten?
As an expat, I conduct daily life in a second language that I speak at an intermediate level. Having to learn to read or do arithmetic in this language would be a nightmare. Yes, children have brilliantly plastic brains but primary education should remove all barriers to learning.
4
So many people are so rude when they tell someone to speak English! Where is our heart? Even if you do not speak Spanish, what about being empathetic?
I was just on a bus in the Bronx and the bus driver turned off Broadway. A passenger panicked and went to the driver. She asked him something in Spanish. He rudely shouted that he didn't speak Spanish. As she rushed off the bus, I saw someone guide her to her correct bus.
We must remember to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and do our best to be kind, even if we can't be helpful.
9
My wife spoke only Spanish when she began kindergarten. Far from holding her back, it enriched her life. She went on to become a university English professor, teaching creative writing, and the winner of an American Book Award. She, like the writer of this article, has used her language abilities many times to help others. The false pride so many persons tie to their ability to speak only one language is little different than revering ignorance.
5
The Feo Americano approach to the Spanish language transcends the borders of el loco Los Estados Unidos. My wife and I pulled up stakes and became moved to a Spanish speaking country as ex-pats after W's re-election . We immediately began learning Spanish to become better members of our new country. The joy one experiences being able to communicate, however poorly, in a new language is indescribable. Yet, sadly, we see many Americans here, on vacation, or living here, who make no attempt to speak even the most rudimentary Spanish and indeed who become irritated at those who don't speak English. I've asked why don't you try and learn Spanish, thier response, "why should I, there are enough people here who speak English". Sad, and ultimately their loss.
4
For those who haven’t heard the old joke, it packs an ironic punch:
What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
An American.
6
It’s upsetting for me to see the way American society pushes immigrants and their children to abandon their language and culture. I have close Latin American family who never watch or read the news in Spanish, have never used an ATM in Spanish, and are unfamiliar with their native country’s history, to say nothing of its current turmoil.
2
"I found myself interpreting her words verbatim, forgetting to switch from the first person to the third".
In fact, that's what official translators employed by NSW Health are actually required to do. It's correct procedure.
2
This story would gain from a little description of the family origins and location. there is a story that is never told. The one of immigrant arriving alone in a country where no one speak their language and who drop everything that connect them to their birth country including their native language. This is what happened to me and many other that I know. French arriving alone at age 19, not speaking much English, no family around, no access to bilingual schools, I had to adapt quickly, crash course quickly and for everyone I know in the same situation the first thing we did was to drop everything related to our home country and that includes the language. Thirty something years later and now a US citizen, my children are not bilingual, I dream and read in English, and I get judged every single time when asked why my children are not bilingual. This process of adaptation was so so hard “leaving everything behind and creating new families and friends in this country” as they said at the Immigration office. So there is a story of immigration that interests no one.
2
I regularly remind myself that when the Mayflower arrived, two or more tribal members greeted them in English. Tisquantum/Squanto had the best command, had been in Europe (London and Spain) and back as a slave, and could write. His first language was Algonquin. Samoset's first language was Abenaki and was somehow in Massachusetts not Maine. A chief had fewer words probably learned from fishermen. It is possible that they knew some French and perhaps Portuguese from trading. Of course, it was all more complicated but apparently language skills had high awareness now diminished.
3
I have often wondered why so many Americans react with indignation when they hear another language being spoken in America. Those who react this way are often monolingual. I cannot help but think that a large part of it is insecurity. Here is this person, to whom they feel superior, who is doing something intellectual that they cannot do... In the case of Spanish, there is also that ugly fear of being "replaced" that has found fertile soil on the American Right.
1
it is not just the issue of language, but the issue of perceived inferiority that motivates many multi-lingual/multi-cultural resisters. In an example not related to language, I recall a student, 30 years ago, who earned an A in my class after barely passing the first semester. When I asked him what his parents thought about his report card (it would have delighted my parents) he told me: "My father threw me up against a wall and told me not to think it made me better than him."
1
Thank you for this article. I would only add that striving for fluency in two languages makes one better at speaking, and writing, in both.
3
I agree. I learned so much more about English grammar once my French studies intensified. Subjunctive? Never heard that phrase until studying a foreign language. I never said “I wish I was” again and understood why.
Learning a second language is also fascinating because it allows one to contrast one language with another. There may not be literal translations for words or phrases, so it’s interesting to see how such words are communicated. Language is an important window into culture.
By geographic necessity, Americans have not had to learn additional languages to make our way, but it’s our loss. It definitely should be part of our education system much much earlier as how can learning less be better?
3
I'll always remember the thrill in college decades ago when I first realized that I was thinking in Spanish - that my brain was actually using Spanish to process information and formulate responses in Spanish - rather than my native English. These days, my Spanish is rusty, and I can read it better than I can speak or understand it when spoken to me, but I keep trying every year when we vacation in Mexico. I also frequently shop at a local Mexican food store where I practice it with the store employees who tell me how they cook various Mexican ingredients - everything from how to clean nopales to how they make fava bean soup. Every child in the US should be required to learn a second language starting in grade school when it is easiest to learn.
5
I’ve learned to speak Spanish with proficiency as an adult and it is one of the highlights of my life. Through my classes at UNAM, I learned (30 years ago) that a significant portion of Spanish comes from Arabic. Because I took classes taught by Mexican linguists, I also have learned the Nahuatl words, as well as other indigenous terms, that pepper Mexican Spanish. In other words, in speaking, reading, and living this language in South Texas and Mexico, I have gained a window into culture. It is precious and wonderful and not anything I would trade.
12
Spanish is an Indo-European language.
1
This is amazing.
My eight year old daughter, who is in third grade, attends a bilingual public school. 50% of the students are native English speakers. Most of the other students are native Spanish speakers, though there are a few native Qʼanjobʼal speakers for whom Spanish is their second language.
It’s a little more difficult for her academically, because half of the day is tight in Spanish and half of the day is taught in English. But I would not trade the experience that she’s having for anything. Her social life is richer, her perception of the world is more broad, and I believe that once she discovers the common Latin roots shared by the two languages her English vocabulary skills will expand dramatically. From there there are the myriad terms in biology, botany, etc etc, that she will be one step ahead, or many steps ahead, in understanding due to her study of Spanish.
I’m incredibly proud of the work she is doing, and very thankful for this article, some of which I will share with her.
Two thumbs up.
7
Although English is my first language I lived in Spain when young and speak fluent Spanish: yet when I speak start to speak Spanish to native Spanish speakers (more for myself to stay in practice) - say to a store clerk or such - they usually take offense, as if I'm condescending to them. I no longer bother to try.
1
@Rethinking
I'm bilingual white and have had similar experiences. I try not to take it too personally. People fear to stand out as different. In the US many Hispanics are afraid to speak Spanish to someone obviously not Hispanic. They've had too many bad experiences. Also, from my own experience, It's simply easier to stay in the common language. I occasionally get Mexicans trying to speak heavily accented English to me for practice. It's difficult to switch and try to understand what they are trying to say. For me our communication is more important than confusing it with helping them with their English. Only sometimes do we switch to English and that is when they specifically say they would like to. If you're sufficiently fluent you might try that if it's important to you.
1
@Rethinking,
As far as I know, that clerk might be scorned by her employer for speaking spanish back to you. That's how unfair and cruel it is.
2
I’ve noticed this change over the past 35 years or so. My ex is a polyglot with perfect, colloquial Spanish and he never skipped an opportunity to use it (or any of his several languages). He was not at all condescending, just friendly and wanting to practice. Maybe it’s the hipsters blasting them with overly loud orders with ostentatious lisping?
2
French is my second language. I learned it back in the 1970's living in France and Switzerland. Though I use it very little except for visits back to Europe, it is never far from me as there are sentiments and emotions that are best expressed, if only in my head, in that tongue.
There are reasons why some French expression or other is so often invoked in conversation because it embodies a feeling that English is not as capable in calling up quite as well. This uniqueness must hold to some extent for most or all languages and affirms the boundless creativity of language and the spoken word.
4
The author is indeed fortunate, as are millions of others, who speak more than one language. As Natalia stated, she is constantly interpreting, and restating. This is mental gymnastics, and allows her, and others, to expand their capabilities. Bravo to her and all others who jump from one language to another: we are all richer for it.
5
There is a developmental open window for language; if a child begins early, the window stays more open for future language learning as well. It is difficult for adults with no previous experience of another language to become fluent. Perhaps Americans, especially those with only one language, could keep that in mind before they castigate adults who are struggling with English. I would bet also, that those Americans have very little, if any, experience of having to struggle with another language themselves in another country.
Having said all that, and feeling that having Spanish-speaking Americans enriches our culture, I do think language is unifying. Some countries do well with more than one language--Canada--in others it contributes to tension--Belgium and others. I don't know the answers, but maybe English speakers could be less arrogant in interactions with struggling adults.
6
Thanks. This a lovely story of connectedness. There is enough every day connection to go around.
5
America has much to learn from Romania.
Speaking my halting and fractured Romanian, I travel around this jewel of a country, with its spectacular natural scenery, delicious food and warm-hearted people. They are almost without exception not just tolerant but encouraging and friendly with my attempts at their poetic and musical language. About half of them speak excellent English, and yet they indulge my staggering along in Romanian, supplying needed words and gently fixing conjugations. Monolingual old bunicas (grandmothers) apply to me the same tactics as with a language-acquiring toddler.
Once in a while a crusty bus driver will snap back at me in English when I’m particularly incomprehensible, but that, too is a kind of love.
I wish I could bottle this and pour it in the drinking water back home.
9
I’ ve been in the US for 20 years now. My first language is Spanish. I’m married to a white American. I have a 10-year-old daughter who’s bilingual, and I work hard everyday to keep her bilingual. I won’t let her forget her Spanish. Yes, I’ve had a chance to help others and translate for others. I have to say I have NEVER felt ashamed of my language. No matter where we are, my daughter and I speak in Spanish. I don’t know if it’s due to the place where we live or because we are white, but I’ve never felt weird looks or people acting differently when I speak Spanish. If this ever happened, I’m ready to stand up for my culture and my language. Every Latin American should feel proud of their roots and language. If it bothers others, that’s their problem, not ours.
20
Because you are white is why folks don't hassle you for speaking Spanish.
3
Discouraging the richness of spanish speaking and the promotion of bilingual education in America due to xenophobia and isolationism weakens the human resource this nation needs to keep being successful in the future. It did not only happened to spanish speaking folks but also occurred to cajuns who spoke French in Louisiana. In the past, cajun kids were ridiculed and banned from speaking French at school. Forcing a monolithic culture is in sharp contrast to the challenges of a world that is integrating by the widespread access to modern communication technology. Xenophobia and racial supremacy are nurtured by the fear of loosing inherited power and privilege. Embracing diversity will make us stronger.
11
I teach English as a Second Language to adults. Some of them of newly arrived and others have been here for many years. I have nothing but admiration for people who have the courage to move away from all they know and love — food, customs, and family — to start anew in a strange country where the culture and the language are alien. The majority of my students are native Spanish speakers, but I’ve had Chinese and Indian students, as well. They have enriched my life (and make me ashamed that my Spanish isn’t any better than a two year old’s.)
Several of them have expressed concern about their children’s school performance if they’re learning their native language and not English at home. I’ve told them not to worry: bilingualism is the best gift you can give them. I wish I could speak more than one language!
Only the most closed minded and ignorant would look on the ability to converse in a foreign language as a flaw. But sadly it seems that is what a large percentage of our country believes.
10
As philosopher Wittgenstein famously wrote: the limits of my language are the limits of my world.
I speak 4 languages, and live in Brussels, a city with 1 million habitants, more than half of whom don't speak any of the two official languages (French and Dutch) at home. There are more than 120 nationalities. De facto, French (second language of a majority) has become the language of communication (in shops, on the street, ...), but ... only a minority speaks it almost perfectly, the majority having all kinds of accents - to such an extent that the "national sport" is to try to guess someone's native language based on his/her accent in French.
The only ones NOT happy with the situation at all, are many of the 10% native Dutch speakers. But that's because instead of Dutch, their mother tongue is Flemish ... AND they have been told at school that Flemish (which comes in tens of variants, knowing that a speaker of one of them can't understand a speaking of another variant) is "vulgar" and reprehensible so should not be used.
Native French speakers, in turn, tend to associate Dutch/Flemish with ... uneducated people working in agriculture - because more than a century ago, many Flemish people fled to the industrializing French part of th country, to try to find a job. And then somehow it still sticks in collective memory/imagination...
5
I've studied six languages over the years, and taught three of them (French, Spanish, English); currently, I live in China, and I study Chinese on my own every day. The internet is such a blessing for language learning. I remember learning French in high school, watching Truffaut movies with duct tape over the subtitles.
The Indo-European languages have a fairly similar structure - I think the most difficult language I studied was Korean, which I didn't master. But I look at language learning like exercise; if I'm not doing it every day, my day feels incomplete. It's a workout for the brain. And language always gives new insights on how human beings see and interpret the world.
Language is not just a tool. It's how we think. It's the OS for our brains. Try to imagine coherent thought without language. If you go through life with just one language to express yourself, you're missing out on something.
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@David
Your last paragraph brings to mind a textbook from my college days “Language in Thought and Action” by S.I. Hayakawa. The premise is that language has a profound impact on how we think.
19
@David There are those of us who inherited something that makes us fascinated with languages: learning, teaching, etymology, grammar, all of it. So there’s an important strand in the human genome not just for language but for marveling in it.
I missed out on early language training (except for teaching myself the Cyrillic alphabet when I was 12) but now my primary retirement activity is playing around with the language of my next travel destination. Then I have wonderful multi-lingual conversations with people from all over the world where we genially mangle whatever languages we have in common with smiles and laughter.
Un solo idioma nunca es suficiente.
39
@David
All true.
Except Einstein appears to have thought in pictures. He was also an excellent writer.
The cyclic structure of benzene was proposed by Friedrich Kekule after he had a dream of atoms dancing around, forming themselves into strings, then rings, and ending up as snakes eating their own tails. He described the dream using words, but there were no words uttered in his dream, as far as is known.
12
Yes, when one goes to live and work in another country, one should learn the local language. But since learning a foreign language has long been an easily ignored option in American education, most Americans have no idea how much effort is required, especially for adults. Some commenters on other articles related to language learning have said that learning another language in school is a waste of time because one has little opportunity in the US to actually use it. That may be true, but just the experience of struggling to speak in another tongue can provide an empathy invaluable in many situations throughout life.
And then there's the irony that when Americans go abroad, they expect everyone to speak English to them. I've observed that the North Americans and Europeans working for their companies here in Taiwan have their own schools, churches, and social clubs. It's possible to spend several years here and have little meaningful contact with the country and its people. I understand that part of the reason for this is that these people expect to be in Taiwan only a few years and then return to their home countries, though some do end up staying on. In a few years, though, one can build a very solid foundation in a language and culture if one is willing to make the effort. But one needs to be willing to get out of one's comfort zone, not easy for human beings to do, but worth the effort, considering the empathy one can learn for the struggles of newcomers back home.
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@Alicia Lloyd YOu are being a bit coy; it is no secret those schools, churches, and social clubs are very highly thought of and often local parents go to great lengths (money and otherwise) to get their kids to just such a school.
3
@Alicia Lloyd
You hit the nail on the head; (and lets wonder if that expression is one appearing with the same meaning in different languages.). Many Americans, in my experience do not know how much regular persistent and enjoyable work it takes to learn a language.
I recall one day as an adult, particularly stressed, I sat down to escape into French grammar and emerged later with my physical brain feeling unscrambled and calm.
Seymour Bernstein, the subject of an excellent documentary by Ethan Hawke talks about how learning to practice the piano as a skill in itself, changes one’s life. As the emotional brain and thinking brain begin to work together, feeling meaning of music and analyzing how to learn it, one becomes more integrated.
20
@Alicia Lloyd I agree. I speak some German, my husband is from there. I began taking German classes as an adult and discovered I have a bit of a facility for languages. I decided that I would pretend I was a child learning a language and try not to be embarrassed by my mistakes. You don’t just learn a language you learn about the culture. Americans have lost out in a lot by not learning a second and/or third language.
31
We (the US) are the only country I know of in which uses the word "bilingual" as a pejorative.
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@Jason, traveling in Europe we were struck by how people spoke multiple languages switching back and forth. My Swiss friend speaks Swiss German, French and Italian with ease and in English when she is in the US. It’s so strange here in the US. Traveling in Asia similarly we were struck by how many dialects people spoke, depending on the region they came from within the country. In a place like India alone some 20 regional languages plus hundreds of dialects. The number of language scripts is mind boggling.
23
I don't believe for an instant that this is true. Certainly everyone I know views being bilingual as a blessing, and being trilingual as a greater blessing.
@Jason
22
@Jason However, if you remember the concept of the "Ugly American", it has become twisted. Used to be if you went to a foreign country and expect everyone to speak and understand English, you were considered rude. Now, if a foreigner comes to America, and you don't speak THEIR language, you are considered an Ugly American. Sigh!
4
Your mother did you a huge favor. I also speak a second language (Russian) as well as some Spanish. One Russian lady conveyed the beauty of being multilingual: "Another language, another soul." Your depth and breadth as a human being are magnified. And, as you shared, the best moments are when we can help others in their moment of need. Your other language(s) do not have to be word perfect in order to be music to the ears of those who feel like a stranger in a strange land. Learning another language is a gift you give to yourself and to others.
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@Martha Goff
Or as one teacher taught me, knowing other languages makes you twice, or thee or four times the person who only speaks one language.
22
Such a beautiful comment. I am Portuguese and fluent in French, basic Spanish and German. Still have an accent in English after living here for 10 years. From my experience, in the US if you have an accent you are considered somehow less sharp, no matter how many other souls you have...
38
@Martha Goff, speaking of Russian, if one takes the time to learn the Cyrillic alphabet, a lot of Russian words become immediately obvious.
"трам" is tram (although you guys call them streetcars).
"лифт" is lift (or elevator in U.S. English).
Some friends who visited Russia but didn't know the alphabet said that they always ate in pectopahs. Pectopahs?? Try "Ресторан" which is simply "restaurant" written in Cyrillic!
23
Thank you for the story. I can relate and remember all those times I was translating for my parents and others. Because my first language was Spanish I had to work hard in learning English when I started school. That was over 50 years ago and I still have to work on my language skills. But this time I am not ashamed and understand the science of being bilingual.
2
My German wife and I have been conversing bilingually for 50 years. When we do speak German, it is 'High German'. Both my wife and I can also speak "Bayrisch" when with Bavarians, although my wife than lapsed over to "Schwäbisch' with her family. I myself met my wife with when I was a US soldier in Germany, a 98G translator/Interpreter in SerboCroatian for the USASA. After my service, we came back to the states, and while in University I minored in Slavic languages, which I got to use extensively during my expatriate career as a Chemical Engineer for a major international oil company.
Being multilingual has enriched my life exponentially. It has opened opportunities to understand people around the world - and for them to understand me. It has made the fabric of our family's life much more insightful. Languages, and using them to comprehend, can shape who we are.
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@Joe Miksis
Serbo/Croatian gives you an advantage with the other Slavic languages (maybe somewhat less so with Polish) tho mine is far from fluent. My ancestors spoke both High German and Low German as well as Swedish but I missed access to that generation to my great frustration. On Cape Cod, French Canadian, Portuguese, and Bulgarian (summer kids) are leading in the "useful to know" local charts. More languages is always an unforeseen advantage.
17
We'd been living in the Netherlands for a couple of years when our daughter came for an extended visit. We took her to London and did a bus tour to get an overview of the city. There were two older Dutch couples on the bus who spoke little English. At the end of the tour they asked me to thank the tour guide for them. I translated their remarks but the guide clamped her mouth shut and glared at me. "I don't believe you!" My daughter grabbed my arm to make sure I didn't retaliate. You think it is bad in the USA? Try the UK!
1
@Tom
Having spent a lot of time in the U.K, I don’t believe this is representative of Londoners at all.
I have always thought that one of the greatest gifts parents can give their children is two ways to think about the world.
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@Fritz Burden Not just two ways to think about the world: two worlds!
24
The immigrant story of not speaking English and struggling with prejudice is centuries old. Being laughed out and ridiculed for having an accent is not right or fair or kind but it is also not unique to the US.
And as many have said, being multi-linguistic opens minds and cultural doors.
But so does learning the language of the country you live in. When I moved abroad I did not want to live in a ghetto of foreigners and I felt it was my responsibility to learn the language of my new country. I am glad I did.
So I agree that knowing more than one language is a gift. But that goes both ways. The immigrant should also be reaching out to the new culture.
This battle about bilingualism should not be a blame game.
4
Being at home in more than one language is more than communication, it brings understanding of other peoples, their culture and their lives. I happen to live in a state where three cultures with their separate languages and culture live peacefully together.
10
Languages (all languages, not only Spanish) the portal into the forma mentis of others. It is what allows you to see the world not as a neo-imperialist, but from the perspective of the other. A foreign language -- not the STEM subjects -- is the conditio sine qua non for acting and interacting in a globalized economy.
14
I once heard Peter Ustinov say everyone in his family and the servants spoke a different language, the one common one being English. This forced him as a child to address each person in their mother tongue. As an adult his proficiency in all but English was not perfect but passable.
I learned English when we emmigrated to Canada where all my friends' parents spoke other languages as did many of my immigrant classmates.
My mother did not continue to speak her mother tongue to me thus I lost the opportunity to continue learning it. When I moved back to Europe I rued her decision. Recalling Ustinov's experience, I decided to speak English to my children and my husband spoke Dutch. We moved to Switzerland and a year later to France.
The end result? The kids read and speak and work in four languages with fluency and the correct accents in countries other than their birth country or France where they grew up. Europe is their oyster. They have benefited enormously.
34
Bilingualism, or multi-lingualism, opens more doors to life thatn one could expect. There is, however, in the US a rather large undercurrent of people whom I call Xenoglossophobiacs, who cannot tolerate anyone using any other language than English. I was fluent once in both German and French, but if you do not use it, you lose it. I pick up both quickly, however, when I am immersed in them. Once you pick up a language other than the one you started with, it seems that more fall into your lap quite easily.
12
Yes I too have met Americans who look askance at people speaking another language.Having come to USA in the seventies I was appalled at Gomer Pyles accent!Have also encountered Americans that cannot spell!This negative attitude only signifies an Arrogance of Ignorance.
1
We monolingual Americans should remember that people around the world speak their native language(s) AND English. Politically, socially and economically, that puts us a huge disadvantage. Why wouldn't we want to be able to communicate with others, especially when we are in their homes?
20
I’m the monolingual mother of a linguist and the grandmother of two bilingual boys (English/Hebrew), one who’s also learning Japanese and the other is learning Arabic. As a new American- Israeli I dutifully go to Ulpan to learn Hebrew, a language with which I have been long familiar from Synagogue. For me it’s difficult so I have lots of sympathy for struggling immigrants and I have major degrees from major universities.
13
I was the first generation of Egyptian Jews who immigrated to NY. English, French and Arabic were spoken in my home, often in the same sentence.
French ended up being my first tongue, and I'm so disappointed I never learned Arabic, as my folks spoke it, when they didn't want us to know what they were saying.
Now as a recent citizen of Spain, I can speak Spanish and embarking on Catalan as well.
Being able to converse in another language gives me joy in being able to communicate with those not of my native culture.
In my new career, I'm teaching ESL and in NY taught classes to those of many nationalities. The foreigners were wonderfully receptive to learning English and integrating into American culture. If only
Americans had that same desire to learn other languages, the world would be a better place.
29
Recently, while spending time with family in an emergency room, I couldn't notice the rapport of 2 Spanish-speaking people, one patient and one nurse. The nurse spoke perfect English to me, but the rapport she had with the other patient was special. It seems as if time stopped around them as they talked with each other. The beauty of connection.
11
I think Americans get angry at Spanish speakers partly because they are ashamed at how badly they did in high-school Spanish. Things would look different if foreign languages were better taught in school.
A second point: neuropsychologists have known for decades that people who were raised bilingually recover much better from left-hemisphere strokes that cause language disturbances. The best thing immigrant parents can do for their children is to speak to them in their native language.
13
I can hear my Anglophone mother, telling me to repeat whatever I’d just told her in French. I can hear the exasperated sigh. I can feel my eye rolling in annoyance too. But just like you, 30 years later, I am beyond grateful. What a gift! So today, I raise my son the same way.
6
There is nothing wrong with being bilingual, but foreigners need to learn to speak English. That doesn't mean prejudice should follow, but native born English speakers should not be expected to speak or understand. If they choose to, that is fine, but it shouldn't be expected.
But of course what will follow is that in the struggle for resources, the "interpreters" will push for more social services for foreigners who don't speak English, over the needs of native born Americans. Native born English speaking Americans will be the ones experiencing prejudice.
4
@Barbara: Nothing wring with being bilingual? To me, it’s wrong NOT to be bilingual! Or trilingual. Try going to another country in the developed world sometime, where most people speak at least one and often two other languages besides their own. I am routinely chastened by the fact that I speak only English and a little bit of French learned in high school. Speaking another language opens up new worlds. If I ran this circus, I would make learning Spanish mandatory - it is the first language of 32 other countries in the world, including one we share a border with. It’s shameful.
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@Barbara
Wow. Have you traveled outside the US? To a non-English speaking country? Most others are fluent in English, AND another language besides their own. It is an embarrassment that we Americans are so arrogant that we believe everyone should cater to us.
I understand that learning the language of one’s adopted country is of utmost importance. But do you understand ad how hard it is to learn that second language, especially if you have no support system and few resources?
Additionally, those who are bilingual simply have better language skills overall, period. I took an Icelandic language course in Iceland this summer. The Europeans that already knew at least 2 languages had a much easier time than I did.
I really believe our country would be so much better off if everybody had the experienced of being in a place where they did not speak the native language, and they had to communicate. Put the shoe on the other foot.
20
It is so sad that one immediately thinks of lost benefits and competition. Our Nation of Immigrants deserves better from its citizens.
5
When I first lived in the mid Atlantic area in the 1970's someone said to me that it was too bad that I had not experienced more cultural diversity growing up in a small town in Michigan. I cracked up laughing because in my home town, everyone was a recent immigrant. All of the grandparents spoke with a heavy accent and knew little English. But emphasis was on assimilation, so we only knew English except for a few words here and there. Now I wish my father had taught me German.
6
Being bi-lingual or tri-lingual promotes understanding. Although we spoke English at home, my family and I grew up in Japan and quite possibly Japanese was our first language. We attended an primarily French school, and learned French as a third language. We are of Armenian background and it has been my constant regret that my siblings and I never learned out native tongue. I think America would be far more of a world leader if its politicians were fluent in several tongues, certainly there would not be the conflicts we see today if they did.
35
It's a huge advantage to be multilingual, it broadens your horizon and allows you to communicate with people all over the world.
But it's disheartening to speak the three official languages of the country you live in plus two others and then being, in that same country, reprimanded for your lack of understanding of the language of a second generation immigrant who does not bother to learn any of the national or other European languages and stays proudly monolingual (a dialect that even the official interpreters don't understand well).
4
In Europe it is standard to have basic skills in at least one other language besides your own. But that is our own system.
What irritated me in the USA was the usual disparaging comment "You have an accent" I heard all too often. I was always tempted to ask how many languages the speaker could use and that accent-free.
It is good to see that learning a second language is becoming more accepted and common in the USA, even though the quality of language instruction is not so great.
As some others have commented, knowing more languages opens that many new worlds to people, foreign mentalities, cultures, ideas.
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@CMD
You are interpreting their comment negatively. Usually they just want to know where you're from and not disparaging that fact you have an accent. In fact, they probably like it.
Thank you for this! Being proficient in Spanish is one of my greatest prides. I am working on Turkish now, at age 64!
32
@SusanI Bravo!What a great accomplishment.
2
Multilingualism is indeed a gift, and one that I've given to my children. In our combined family of five we all speak English as one dominant language and French, German, Polish, Spanish and other languages. One reason we've learned these languages is we move to other countries and it is the first responsibility of the new immigrant to learn the language of the country in which s/he resides. That applies to new arrivals to the United States as well as new arrivals to other lands. I am as appalled when a resident American speaks English in Mexico in a commercial setting as when a Mexican or German does the same in the United States. Those of us who are multilingual can help those who have not yet made the transition to speaking the dominant language of the country in which they reside. But the responsibility to learn the host country's language is urgent whether one is living in a Spanish-speaking, French-speaking, or any-other-language-speaking land, including the United States where the dominant language is English.
13
@Andrew S.E. Erickson I get where you're coming from, but I must tell you it is a pretty entitled view. I'm the same, when I want to learn the language coming to a new country. I have the resources and time to do just that. I bet a lot of immigrants to the US don't have either of those or are afraid that enrolling in english classes especially state sponsored ones might lead to them being evicted. That is, at least I feel, the real goal of this administration. To instill fear in the minds of immigrants and just work and keep their head down. To still reap the benefits of their labor and on the other hand making them scapegoats to what ever ills they think play with their base, without them having any recourse.
16
Hear hear! So correct. Learning another language takes time and money, which many of these immigrants don't have as they work long hours and are often at a huge economic disadvantage. I'm trying to improve my 3rd language, French, but I can afford to take a month off and pay for an intensive course in Montreal. One thing that also annoys me about the admonishing of some monolingual Americans that Latinx don't speak English is the fact that many states in the Southern border were actually part of Mexico, so Spanish speakers were the actual natives and the English speakers were the newcomers who were not speaking the local language. And I'm sure most never tried!
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@NelsonMobama
I am not sure what resources there are for recent immigrants in learning English. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are few that are free and easily accessible.
It is amazing that the importance of communication and languages needs explanation. I have always considered myself so fortunate that fate gave me the gift of several languages. Spanish and Catalonian parents allowed me to enjoy the differences in humour between Spaniards and Catalonians. The accident of being born in France gave me the gift of being able to understand yet another sense of humour and the beauty of the passé simple. Finally, thrown into English school gave me yet another gift, the appreciation of yet another sense of humour and the beauty of Shakespeare in its original version. Everyone should be so fortunate, it would be a better world.
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@Emile Subirana Yes, indeed. I'm jealous---Catalan esp. is so beautiful.
2
Becoming fluent in a second language has another major advantage -- especially for Americans -- that I haven't seen mentioned here: It enables one to see one's own country, one's own culture, from a fresh perspective. One can see strengths and weaknesses that are invisible to those who grew up knowing only one language and one culture.
It seems to me that multilingual people are far less likely to be provincial and closed-minded.
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I was born and raised in Miami in the 1970s. A Peruvian mother and Cuban father and, like the author, Spanish is what we spoke at home. I excelled at school. I was honors English. Every trip to Peru introduced me to a wider world of Spanish and I held onto it and polished it as best I could through the years because I love words. All words - it is to me a joie de vivre.
But I also grew up in a time in Miami where the English only movement gathered momentum. I will never the bumper sticker that far too many cars had in Miami during those years. It read, “Will the last American to leave Miami please bring the flag.” In all those cars sat people who were like my family buying groceries, going to their jobs and yes hating us with last names like mine.
The kid in me never forgot that rebuke and I joined the ranks of the rebellious at that tender age and began reading in Spanish. Miami became a bilingual city anyway. The bumper stickers faded and peeled and the cars that wore them got bought by the newly arrived immigrants.
I live and work in Europe these days and speaking more than one language is de rigueur here on this side of the pond. I go back to Miami often enough to place what happened there in the 70s and 80s into a larger framework that even today provokes pride and anxiety. I do hope the people there never forget the racism endured and not just that directed at people who speak a language other than their own or walk in skin shaded other than theirs.
41
When I emigrated from Italy at age 4 I spoke Italian. My parents said I was embarrassed to speak in public and now many years later I can’t speak Italian. I would love to speak it. My heart is stirred when I hear it but I have lost the opportunity and deeply regret it.
11
@Dan learn it again! you will be surprised how at home you are with the Italian language, and how quickly you can pick it up again. I too had to relearn my first language, and it is surprising how much still remains in your brain, even years later.
2
In Europe speaking multiple languages is the norm, and I always find that the more languages you speak the more open to other cultures you are.
People that speak only one language tend to be more conservative than those that speak multiple languages. I speak three fluently and can get by in a couple more (Spanish, English, Italian, Catalan and French). I find that to be the common thread in most countries.
26
Very interesting article. It’s very common in India for people to speak two to three languages with effortless ease. I speak Telugu, English, Hindi and Marathi. In addition I know Gujarati, Sanskrit and Tamil to a certain extent.
Learning number of languages certainly helps us to communicate and also understand other linguistic groups better. Hindi helped me to navigate better when I worked in Maharashtra, India where I learnt their language Marathi whereas Telugu is my mother tongue, which is spoken in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, India. English has enabled me to reach people globally and it was my official language too while working.
22
I feel that I also reached a better understanding of my native language and became more precise when learning other languages.
In addition different customs come to life, different aspects of understanding structures of society.
Every language uses different images, words have a different subset of meanings, and when you don’t know a specific word or phrase during a conversation- you have to describe it.
And quite frequently you realize that you allowed yourself some slurs in your own language.
Speaking another language is for your brain like switching from black and white TV to color HD with surround sound.
19
Your story is nice but the title made me expect a much brighter spectrum of advantages of being bilingual. I grew up bilingual French and German which made it easy to become multilingual. Sure, being able to help tourists who speak German, English and Italian is nice but there is so much more to speaking other languages. It gives me a chance to speak with locals and dip into their culture when I travel and it has also allowed me to appreciate the literature of other countries without the filter of translation and and and ...
12
The writer talks about the social complexity of Spanish-English bilingualism in the US. It's a very different set of challenges and complexities from multilingualism in Europe, involving French, German, Italian, none of which is under any sort of stigma. As a person who has lived in different countries in both Europe and the US, I think I can relate to the different sets of challenges of different language groups in the two continents. The difference is discrimination linked to being a Latin person in the US.
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Yes, you get that once you read the article but title doesn’t reflect that.
We raised our two children to be trilingual: English, French and Spanish. When we moved back to Paris from London, we enrolled them in a bi-lingual school where half of the courses are taught in French and half in English. They switch among the three languages with great ease.
It is quite common in Europe for people to speak several languages. Less common for an American to do so. I am often asked if I am British or Canadian because no American could speak fluent French, right? They are quite surprised when I tell them, nope, born and raised in So Cal. Learned to speak French in college, exchange program and "on the pillow" as my French wife likes to say.
So when our daughter applied to US universities, we thought that her language abilities would be viewed as a Plus. Nope, guess again, absolutely no value whatsoever. "How is her English? Can she read and write it OK?"
There is nothing wrong with being mono-lingual. However, I have come to appreciate the exposure to different cultures and new ways of looking at things that multi-linguism brings.
38
My father and his two brothers were brought up in the US by a French-born father and a Czech mother, but grew up speaking no other language but English at home. My father told me that as a child he was sometimes made fun of and called “froggy” because of the food he brought to school for lunch and his very French name, and so his main concern was always to blend in - certainly not to show knowledge of a foreign language. As a result he grew up with no knowledge of the languages of his parents and it was something he deeply regretted later in life.
Fortunately two generations later, when my French/American daughters were growing up in France, their friends thought it was “cool” to speak English and having an American mother did not seem to embarrass them even if she sometimes made mistakes when speaking French. The fact that they got to celebrate Halloween, Valentines Day, and the Fourth of July as well as Mardi Gras and Bastille Day was also a plus. Speaking a second language-any language! -should always be celebrated as a window onto another world and the idea of children growing up to feel ashamed of speaking the language of their parents as well as that of their new home, is tragic, especially in our “global village.” Just ask my father.
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There are many bi-lingual experiences. I am an immigrant, English-to-French. I left the US to become French by choice, for affinity, and because I got tired of hearing, "if you don't like it here, leave." I could, and did.
I am not the object of discrimination (white, male, a fluent speaker...), and have never felt any but welcome in the country that has adopted me. Obviously, my experience would have been much different had I been Algerian, Senegalais, or Cambodian — but that is about race, not language.
My daughters are perfectly bilingual: born in France, speaking English at home (I spoke with them in French before they first went to school, so that they would arrive fluent in the language), French at school and with friends .
They are proud of their bi-lingualism, and know that it is the envy of their friends. They play with it, find humor in it, compare & contrast cultures... They are unquestioningly French, but know that they are "issues de l'immigration," and they unconsciously do what they need to to "belong" in their native land.
Sadly, I think that the author's story is about a specific bilingualism. Or, perhaps, more about xenophobia than about language. A bi-lingual Spanish / French speaker here is as French as she wants to be, and her Spanish is admired! She can travel in Spain (or South America) as none of the rest of us can, and we wish we could. It may be more about where you are perceived to be from than about the language you speak....
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@Nicolas "I am not the object of discrimination (white, male, a fluent speaker...), "----so did you leave because some in the US might not be so tolerant of your demographic?
I am bilingual, speak, read and write in both Spanish and English. I find that it is a gift to be able to navigate the world in 2 languages and I also find that reading books originally written in Spanish makes a big difference. Isabel Allende, Mario Vargas Llosa, Pablo Neruda, and many other fine writers are a joy to read in Spanish.
8
@Lily Quinones Lily, I am bilingual as well, and so grateful my parents encouraged my brother and me to speak Spanish at home while growing up. Being bilingual has opened many doors for us through the years. Thank you for sharing.
2
I can see how Spanish speakers in the US feel estranged . On the other side, when I came to the US some 25 years ago, I spoke fairly good Spanish, my third language. Naturally, I wanted to connect with the Latino Population in Spanish, which was, however, all in all a frustrating experience. Mostly, whenever I tried to talk in Spanish, my counterpart either didn’t understand it or replied in English. I once went with my friends from Spain ( who did not speak English) to a Mexican restaurant in New York, where the (Latin American) waiters obviously refused to take orders in Spanish (I had to complain with the manager). Even though I realize that mixed English/ Spanish conversations are part of the Latin American culture, I could not escape the feeling, that many, if not most English speaking Latin Americans in the US keep the doors closed to their language culture and are not willing to deal with imperfect non native Spanish speakers by themselves. It will take a greater effort from both sides if the Spanish language should become a truly more integrated communication platform in North American culture.
4
Having the chance to become bilingual is one of the best things that can happen to anyone for reasons the author and I am sure many comment writers will make clear.
Unfortunately, in the America I grew up in long ago it was very unlikely that one would have the good fortune to meet a potential mentor who could plant that idea and lead you to really try.
The additional hitch is that you need to be surrounded by that new language some of the time and have a chance to speak it without being ridiculed.
Later in life I realized that anyone growing up in Seekonk MA could have gotten a start learning Portuguese because there were so many 1st, 2d, and 3d generation portuguese around.
Nobody ever would have mentioned that.
I only speak two but my wife and our daughter are multilingual but both had extraordinary opportunities for learning 2d, 3d, 4th etc that did not exist on a farm in little Seekonk.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
8
Living in South India I can speak 3 languages, which is the bare minimum for most people here. Many of my friends and colleagues can speak 4-5 languages and our conversations are often about the languages themselves, their unique characteristics and their cultural nuances. Having lived both in the US and in South India, I can say with confidence that the ability to speak multiple languages opens up the world in ways that you cannot imagine unless you experience it.
7
I frequently travel abroad. Although, I've learned some phrases in other languages I am only fluent in English, something I bitterly regret. I recently had some uncomfortable experiences in France due to language barriers. I know the difficulty of trying to learn another language as an adult and of being spoken down to for speaking "only English." Over the yesrs, those experiences have made me more sympathetic to people in the U.S. whether travelers or immigrants who don't speak English.
7
I'm an expat in Germany, and here people are very envious of those who can raise their children with multiple languages. One neighbour speaks her native Swedish with her children, her husband speaks to them in his native Spanish, the parents speak to one-another in English, and the children attend German schools. The children will therefore have the opportunity to pursue education and job opportunities throughout much of the world.
Here, speaking several languages grants you admiration, not disdain.
24
To be honest: it does depend on the language and how good the kids are in German. And probably also whether the parents came to Germany teaching at university or seeking unskilled labor.
While more of an exception than a rule, children speaking French or English probably will probably be judged more favorable than those speaking Turkish or Arabic.
Recently I find way too many discussions about excluding kids from school if they didn’t speak sufficient German. They are children. They’ll pick it up in zero time.
Although there are concerns about classes with children from multiple cultures making up sometimes half of the class- the German language is what they have in common.
So if a kid with Russian background needs to communicate with one with a Syrian background and another one from Romania, plays soccer with one from Afghanistan and copies the homework from a child with Turkish background, it will have to interact in German.
7
@Oriwango
When my family moved from the USA to France, I was enrolled in a French school, knew not one word of French (nor did my parents) We spoke English at home, but, at school, I picked up French within a half year, and was fluent in this language very quickly.
The problem we are having in Germany is that, in some classes, non-German speaking children are in the majority, so that they on't have the possibility of öanguage immersion, and end up knowing only scraps of the languages by which they are surrounded. If you want to go to school or work in a given country, you have to learn the language, and learn it correctly, too. Pupils who go through those support courses are able to participate at school, understand what the teacher is saying.
I speak French and English interchangeably and during the past fifteen years have become fluent in Spanish. That happened after I moved to San Diego.
Those who speak a second language generally tend to speak their native language better. Those who condemn anyone for speaking another language are too boorish to be considered. That must be our mindset. It certainly is my own.
I was in Salt Lake City on business some time ago, chattering away with my assistant in Spanish. A passer-by whom we encountered was visibly annoyed with us for speaking privately to one another in that language. How hateful, how dim, how unworthy.
In San Diego, you can speak only or mostly in Spanish most or all of the time. No one will look at you twice for doing so. It makes the region all the more special and wonderful.
Spanish is a beautiful language, especially in my view its various Latin American dialects.
More generally, we should encourage one another to speak other languages.... This message should be a no-brainer. Stigmatizing someone for speaking in their own native language is unthinkably poor behavior.
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@Zola-all languages are beautiful. Or rather, all languages just ARE. They are functional, for communication. Some sound more mellifluous to our English-tuned ears, but that's on us.
1
I am trilingual, French English German, and I speak tolerable Spanish. I can relate to what you say, but I have come to understand the many people who do not have this privilege. Despite teaching German as a foreign language, I have struggled to understand the Tyrolean dialect many people speak here. I feel excluded when two people insist on speaking it in my presence, because quite simply, I don’t get the message... there is undoubtedly some power play involved. Some people may also feel inadequate because their language skills are low. We are all ignorant foreigners somewhere.
4
@Zola. I have had the same experience when speaking a language other than English with my friends in public. People do not think twice about interrupting conversation and exhort us to learn English. I have learned to fight back and be equally rude. These days i I ask in my snootiest English how lazy (I usually use "slothful" the interrupters must be to not know a second language, or perhaps they are too stupid ("unintelligent") to learn one and hence feel threatened by others who do. Not a worthy response, I agree, but I am tired of being polite to people like these.
1
Unlike the author, I did not speak Spanish as a child or have anyone around anywhere that spoke Spanish, and thus I began my learning of Spanish at age 16 when I was on an exchange program living in Mexico, later in college and living abroad a little. No matter how hard I try to learn or practice it in the years since (and I speak it better than most non-native speaking Americans), there always seems to be so much more I don't know. (Of course that is true of my English too.)
So most of my life, I have been jealous of those kids who had exposure to two languages as a child, because if parents and educators ever did the right thing by encouraging the use and practice of both (too often not done), the kids have so many advantages later on, as they can be truly bilingual.
There are many reasons for people to learn another language, aside from the obvious cultural ones. I think it develops the brain's flexible thinking, for one. It is sad that our national bravura (the idea that English is the "best" language) clouds people's ability to realize that learning another language is, like exercise and nutrition, just plain good for you. I also feel like I never really understood English until I started learning Spanish.
And to all these people that continually dream of discovering aliens from other planets: learning and speaking a second language reasonably well will give you the opportunity to discover more unknown worlds on earth than you ever would think possible.
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The issue of bilingualism in the US is shot through with issues of racism and class distinction. I raised two bilingual children who now live in countries where neither of their two 'original' languages are spoken. Raising true bilinguals is a time-consuming process because a foreign language not only opens the gate into a foreign culture, but also requires elements of the foreign culture for the language to be learned properly.
The 'home language' is usually learned outside of school contexts and thus does not develop beyond the level appropriate for a ten-year old. Being able to speak at that level is tremendously practical and can be rewarding, but it does not allow the bilingual speaker to communicate at an age-appropriate and class-appropriate level as an adult. If you sound (and look) native, but cannot use the 'polite' forms (vous, usted, Sie, lei) and don't know everyday information about life and institutions in the country, people will wonder about your intelligence and politeness. These kinds of mistakes made by older children are often of an embarrassing nature for the parents because they were trained in their youth to overcome such 'childish' or 'inappropriate' forms. They overcorrect the children, who then opt out of the parents' language.
This 'turning away' happens especially if the parents' language (sociolect) is not suitable to discuss US school and social affairs and if the language is associated with large numbers of (lower-class) immigrants in the US.
11
@keko Yes, I appreciate your nuanced comments of the complexities of multilingualism. Languages have so many levels. The basic level learned in school, with basic reading, listening, and speaking abilities, relatively easy to achieve in multiple languages (but it is not, at least in my book, true multilingualism). The level of everyday life, where one can have a superficial conversation about a range of everyday topics (weather, food,etc...). The deep level, where one can have complex conversations about any topic using a nuanced language. And the academic level, where one is able to write or give a talk to an audience about complex ideas and topics using a sophisticated language. When people talk about multilingualism, which level are they referring to? Achieving the highest level of linguistic proficiency (i.e., being able to write, give talks, read, and have conversations about complicated topics at a high level) is extremely hard and rare in more than two languages. Maybe a place to start in asking oneself about one's own level of multilingualism is to ask oneself whether one can read literature in different languages. How many people who consider themselves bilingual can effortlessly read books in those languages ?
4
I came to this country from India as a PhD student of English literature. I also speak 3 Indian languages - one from the state in India that my parents belong to, one from the state where my parents settled and where I was born and raised, and Hindi, the language of Bollywood and the language most often associated with India.
When my kids were born here I decided that they would learn Hindi so they were able to communicate with family and friends in India. I have explained to them that no matter how American they feel at heart they will always be seen as hyphenated Americans with their Indian or South Asian identity preceding their American identity. Their brown skin is never going to allow them to be accepted by most in the country of their birth as fully American. So then they must accept their Indian identity with pride and they must be fluent in the language and in their understanding of every aspect of Indian culture. My kids have also realized the advantage of being able to converse in a language that most people around them don't understand.
And last month as my daughter entered 7th grade and started learning Spanish, I have started picking up her Spanish 1 text book in the hope that I can at least learn some conversational Spanish, so we have a language to converse in while visiting India, a language that most people around us there wouldn't understand.
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@SM I hope your children's experience as American citizens is better than you think it will be.
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@James
I sincerely hope so too.
But I have seen the reaction of many people when kids of Indian origin win the Scripps Spelling Bee (my daughter participates in spelling competitions too). I have also heard that most polarizing of questions, "No, but where are you actually from?" being asked when brown-skinned adults claim to be American?
1
Language is an important communication tool. Speaking a common language is similar to using metric system in scientific world. I doubt the author would have same sympathy if a chinese customer in Peru speaking only Chinese.
3
A good thing abt this article & many of the comments is the recognition that learning language is ongoing; that is, it's not true that you can only learn languages when young. Nor is language learning 'easier' when young. In some ways older people have more resources to bring to the experience of learning.
7
@ths907 I am a native English-speaker, fluent in Spanish and struggling a bit to master French, which I also studied at university. I appreciate the nuances of each language and am often at a loss for the perfect word in one language when it comes to me in another. It's an interesting and challenging mental exercise and has made me much more sensitive to situations like those described in the article.
5
I am a bilingual person - a Mexican - who had the good fortune of being able to learn English in a private school as a kid in Mexico City. Today, in the financial services industry where I work, it's not that unusual for Mexicans to speak English. Now, it's more the rule than the exception for the obvious reasons.
But all those years ago, when I was going to school and learning English, it was exceptional. And because of that exceptional education, I was accepted into an top-tier American university undergraduate program and from there, into graduate business program in a prestigious American university. And that makes all the difference in business.
In a way, being bilingual has changed my whole life: My opportunities - my financial future, my family - but not my country and not my culture. Probably could have made more money if I had stayed in the States. But I am a Mexican, I love my country, and I want to work to make Mexico the best country it can possibly be.
But all of that comes back to my ability to speak a foreign language fluently...with a few syntactical errors...
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Why can't Americans realize how wonderful it is to speak more than one language and allow ALL children to learn two languages when they are young? When I was growing up in the L.A. area, I very much wanted to learn Spanish, but my first opportunity to take a class was in junior high—way to late to develop the facility I wish I had, and now I'll always have an accent.
When my kids were in elementary school in Albuquerque, I organized parents to press for just 15 minutes a day of Spanish. The administration beat us down and said it was not in the state standards. A few years later I discovered that, in fact, state law requires all public schools in New Mexico to provide foreign language instruction to all students in grades 1–8 as a condition of accreditation: the state simply ignores the law.
True dual language programs with about half the day's instruction in one language and the rest in the other are very hard to find. And FWIW studies show that, as with music, students who learn a second language do better on those standardized tests our leaders have become so obsessed with.
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@James Goodman There is no scientific evidence that knowing more than one language makes you 'smarter'.
A universal common language would greatly aid communication in the world. Arguments for a multiplicity of languages are emotionally driven by the individual (I like my language so why should i learn yours?) but fail to acknowledge the barriers that are created when people don't all speak the same language. Few people would disagree with the value and joy of speaking more than one language, but no one could disagree that all speaking at least one common language would make it easier for us to understand each other.
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@Dr B
I like my language. Yet, I have learned yours (and a third one, too).
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@Dr B
Maybe you should look up the history of Esperanto, a language designed to be easy to learn, which was once hoped to be a universal language someday. There are an esoteric few out there today who speak it, but it has largely been a complete failure.
The closest thing we have to a universal language is English and it probably will be the best we have for a long time, notwithstanding its multiple complications and ridiculous spelling rules. It is how people in India, with many languages, communicate with each other. It is how the Swiss communicate with each other.
The young people in Quebec and Puerto Rico now mostly all speak English. Maybe not as their first tongue, but they tend to speak it far better than their elders. Everyone in the world in search of success takes it as a given that they will have to learn English to get very far. Native French and English speakers, in my experience, are the most resistant to learning another language, probably because for hundreds of years, everybody else has/had to learn theirs.
The Dutch, on the other hand, often tend to speak several languages well. By being able to communicate in French, German, English, Flemish, etc., the Dutch gained advantages in world trade, and they continue to play that to their advantage. They also start learning other languages when they are very young in school and don't get dubbed TV and movies--unlike their German neighbors--and thus learn to speak, English anyway, with less of an accent.
6
@Dr B There have always been multiple languages and always will be, because of how human language evolves. And there has often been in the history of humanity one or a few languages that have served for communication across languages. For many centuries, Latin was the language for communication across Europe. In the past few decades, English has served as the main language for cross-cultural communication. As a native Italian speaker who lived in the US for many years, now living in a German-Speaking country, I have always loved the English language and am grateful I can read, speak, and write it fluently. I wish I had the time to add French and Spanish, and to improve my German, but one thing people forget to mention in most of these posts is that truly mastering a language requires one thing: a massive investment of time. And when I say massive, I mean it.
2
Several major countries (France, Belgium, UK, Canada) are at least bilingual.
Some (Indonesia, India, Singapore) are mindbogglingly multilingual.
They seem to handle it reasonably well. That is because they see diversity as something to celebrate, not suppress.
As long as we in the US can speak English, it would be quite enriching to be able to speak other languages.
We Americans are quite the melting pot - let us act like it. Diversity is something to celebrate, not suppress.
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@Jason "Diversity is something to celebrate, not suppress."---Unhappily, BOTH left and right have their own view of diversity and neither is ACTUALLY that tolerant, welcoming, and open minded. In fact, orthodoxy is the norm on both sides.
1
France is certainly not bilingual.
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@Jason
They most assuredly don't see diversity as something to celebrate. That's a misstatement and a total ignorance of the facts. They merely tolerate it. I know. I've lived there.
How are France and the UK bilingual? Please explain.
4
I admire your kindness and compassion. It is not easy living in a country where you don’t speak the language. My father was in the military and we were posted to Germany for a few years. I learnt that kindness and compassion is its own language.
14
When we prevent students from speaking their heritage language, we create adults who are half-literate in two languages.
Imagine if we English speakers had been sent to, say, France, but denied access to the language schema that we had constructed our whole lives, and made to start from scratch.
My high school students are overwhelmingly Spanish speakers, and feel stupid for it...because they were made to. They're not literate in Spanish, because they abandoned its study, and they're not confident in English, because they started it long after Spanish was encoded in their cognitive development.
This article is right on the money: Bi-literacy a strength and a gift.
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@R Mandl continue to encourage your students. The future belongs to people speaking more languages.
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@R Mandl
I can't agree more with your comment. A few years ago I did some substitute teaching in a variety of schools, some of which were mostly Latino and native Spanish speakers.
I sub'd for a third grade class, and all the students but two were native Spanish speakers. I was amazed that when they all talked with each other, they did so in English, and only spoke Spanish with a little girl in the class that had just arrived in the US. Why, when no one in authority was "watching", were 7 and 8 year olds all speaking English with each other?
Well it sort of disproved to me this notion that children of migrants don't learn English. The cultural signals get sent when they're very young, whether they realize it or not.
In another high school Spanish class(es), where nearly all the students were Latino, I realized that not all of them were there for an easy "A", as I'd first joked. Though they "spoke" Spanish, many were next to illiterate in Spanish. I always tried to convey the idea that they were very lucky to be able to speak both English and Spanish, and should learn how to do both well as it would give them lots of advantages some day. I wish I could scream to all of them to not to be ashamed--they need to see it as a great advantage and opportunity.
To add to your last paragraph--I think part of the reason they are not confident in English also has to do with the fact that their parents often can't help them at home, as other kid's parents can (like mine did).
9
Listen with your whole body.
Attend to intonation and gesture.
Make eye contact.
Consider the context.
Touch the surface of your surroundings.
Feel the temperature, both physical and emotional.
Attend to scent.
Then,
Lead with your heart
and rely on your gut.
Words matter, and carry the weight of the world. But human communication exceeds the bounds of vocabulay, syntax, accent...spoken language is not the only way we communicate.
5
For me personally, if I had been bilingual, it would been Korean/English, but my parents didn’t speak Korean to me. For a long time, especially in my 20s, I was pretty annoyed at them about this, as I would have loved to be bilingual.
But then I tried to learn Korean in my 30s. It’s an extremely hierarchical language. There are six (SIX!) levels of respect, not two as there are in the three other languages I’ve learned (including Spanish). To have six levels of respect, there are all sorts of ways you need to categorize people before you can comfortably speak with them. Once I began to understand that it would change how I view the world, I think I understood why my parents didn’t want to teach it to me — they’re not the kind of people to get hung up on titles or hierarchies. (In fact, they’re kind of against pretension or superficial things like that.) When I was growing up, people would comment that they were “Americanized,” but I think their personalities were like that even before they moved to the US and so they really enjoy living here.
All of this is to say, I think it’s wonderful that you’re bilingual, and I do feel envious of bilingual people as I always wished I were fluent in another language. But in my case, because of the characteristics of Korean, I have come to appreciate my parents’ choice, which in a way fits with their decision to raise their daughters (me and my sister) quite differently from how we would have been raised in Korea.
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@L: Super interesting perspective! Thank you.
I think your concerns are justified. Language does change "how you think." I have on occasion had to struggle with that: discovering that I have different opinions on a topic depending on whether I am thinking in English or French.
Of course, when you catch one of those, you have to reconcile it, and I do. But I'm always a tad shaken by the discovery.
3
@Nicolas
Thanks. Yes, I remember in class when I learned that age was a major factor in determining how to speak someone, I mentioned to the teacher that some of my best friends are 6, 5 and 9 years older than me, and she said that I would use more respect for them and they would use less respect for me. That blew my mind. I could not imagine speaking with them in this way and having the same level of closeness.
Similarly, my mom told me that one of the times she went back to Korea, she was in the airport and kept hearing passengers’ names being called with the honorific “President/CEO” to their name. She was kind of amazed there were that many on the flight. After a while, realizing that every single passenger was being called this way, she figured out that because, in Korean, it’s too abrupt to call someone’s name without a title attached, and since the airline workers didn’t know people’s actual titles, they were calling everyone by this title. My mom is a very honest, direct and pure person (the kind who can’t even tell a white lie), so I could see how she would be constitutionally incapable of talking to people this way.
3
@L
Your parents grew up learning Korean with its six levels of respect. Yet they turned out to be open minded and not hung up on titles and hierarchies. That is proof that it is not language that makes a person broad or narrow minded.
What makes you believe then that your view of the world would have been narrowed had you learned Korean as a child?
4
This is a fascinating essay. In addition to the greater access that polyglotism grants into the world, there is also an intimacy with one's second, third, or fourth language that is appreciated more and more they are used. Although there is much truth in the expression: "something got lost in the translation," it may be more accurate that some things can only be "found" in their original tongue. Ultimately, there is no more revealing marker about a culture--or the people it claims--than its language.
One develops a "friendship" with additional languages, not only for how they expand our spheres of travel, friendship, literature, film, and writing, but also for their exposure of our human creativity to use visual symbols and aural utterances as standards of common comprehension--and to do so across a global mosaic of patterns. Each added language is like a new friend with its own character and idiosyncracy that beguile, frustrate and mystify.
Achieving fluency in foreign languages also enhances expression in our own mother tongues. Johann von Goethe said no one can ever hope to truly master one's own language before mastering another. Whenever that mutual mastery bridges humanity as Ms. Sylvester's has, then language truly achieves its highest purpose.
15
@Gui Perfectly stated. I couldn't agree more!
It is always hard to read about public shaming when people don’t speak English. Hhistorically this has happened to many immigrant subcultures - Chinese, German (years ago), Greek, Russian, you name it. So many moms and grandmas who can’t go beyond the local store without a youngster to help.
For the luckiest groups, with parents and family life stable enough, and communities established enough, kids had Saturday schools, or sometimes Sunday schools - and many still do - to make sure their German, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Greek, Korean, French etc is fluent, and often to make sure their history, geography, religious study, is more than strong enough to survive a trip to see family “back home” or a year of schooling overseas.
Our fractured country would do well to encourage such programs for every language community - as well as supporting the perennially oversubscribed public English language programs - so that more of the richness and less of the bitterness of our multi lingual and multicultural people would be shared.
It’s not a crazy dream, but instead a global norm these day: to have one (or two) “official” language(s) and many bilingual and multilingual citizens. In some parts of the US - even some large companies, universities- its as normal as breathing. But rare in the common US sphere, and out of reach for too many.
7
Having raised children who speak French and English, my experience was nothing like that. We received enormous encouragement and admiration. The difference between what I lived and what you describe is painful.
26
@A Little Grumpy Sad but true: People make judgments about you based on the other language you speak. If, for example, a man speaks Arabic in public, people make certain negative assumptions about the poor guy.
French, on the other hand, denotes a "non-threatening" ethnicity, so people are more like to respond positively.
16
@Jason
It's even worse, because judgments often change based on the color of skin. It seems it is not uncommon for people to look down on the Chinese people and language in this country. Yet I, a generic white guy, am frequently regarded as "brilliant" because I read (and somewhat speak) Chinese. Talk about a double standard.
4
I studied Spanish in college for four years but later on rarely used it.
I moved to France in 2003 and immediately started learning French.
A few years later my French GP, who is fluent in English, yelled at me suddenly in the middle of an appointment for not learning French more fluently. I was shocked by his inappropriate behavior and never saw him again.
Over time, I have lost respect for the French due to their penchant for overcharging people whenever possible, like the purchase of a lot and home by American foreigners. The same problem occurs with home repairs, particularly with foreigners.
I’ve asked my French friends about this unethical behavior but they just laugh it off as the French way.
This unethical cultural behavior has made me lose interest in learning French any more than is necessary to conduct business transactions.
My friends tend to be other American and British expats who feel the same way about the French value system.
My wife wants to stay in France and I bow to her wishes for her happiness.
9
@Michael Kittle I am sorry you are having this experience. Unfortunately I meet others who feel this way, all expats who have not integrated into their French community, but remain linguistically insulated by their expat associations. As far as experiencing unpleasant doctors and overcharging tradesmen, I could say the same for the United States, and probably every country on Earth. I have found most French professionals to be exceptionally kind and reasonable in their fees, and have only found helpful comments when my French was not adequate. If you must stay here, I hope you find a French group or club to join to moderate the discomfort of living in a country you dislike.
10
@Jean.....my French neighbors complain of the same problem of being cheated by tradesman for work at their homes.
Your explaining away this unethical behavior or making excuses for the French is not helpful.
I grew up in Ohio and spent thirty five years in California where I owned six properties before retirement. I was never cheated by anyone in purchasing or selling these properties. I’m not a neophyte at real estate and all that goes with ownership.
The obvious response is to tell me to leave France but I’ve explained that I bow to my wife’s wishes to stay.
My wife is fluent in French and her perceptions about the unethical behavior of the French is the same as everyone else’s.
4
@Michael Kittle
I haven't had loads of experiences in France, but I can say the ones I have had were fine and even good, once I attempted to speak some French first (I think showing I have learned a little and respect it as the first language of their country) and ALWAYS say "Bonjour" or "Ça Va" or some sort of greeting before launching into what you want to try to say. (To not do so, I am told, is viewed as rude or impolite--and I have noticed I often don't do this in the US--not my habit--when first speaking to someone.)
I think that even with the French, more often than not, many bad experiences could be avoided if the people you are talking to think you respect their cultural traditions and language, and you kind of apologize for not yet being able to be fluent in their tongue.
For all the Americans that complain about the French "obsession" that everyone must speak French, and rudeness to those who can't, take a look in the mirror--because in another 100+ years, we may be acting the very same way if the lingua franca of the world becomes Mandarin, or some other language than English.
Latin and French both had their runs for centuries as the lingua franca of the world. Now it is English. But I doubt that will always be the case.
As far as getting ripped off--there are greedy opportunists all over the world--not sure how that relates to one's language--but there are also cultural rules of the road that are probably as important to know as the language of a place.
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I have been lucky enough to grow up in a country that has 22 official languages and the dialect and pronunciation changes every 500 odd kilometers. By default you grow up multilingual. The best way to connect with anyone is to speak to them in not only their language,but their dialect too. Works even better if you are both in a different country. It is like a breath of fresh air from home.
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@PG
Exactly! I'm from Chennai, but my husband is from Delhi and doesn't speak Tamil. We were taken by a friend of his (also Delhiite) to a Saravana Bhavan restaurant in Dubai a few years back. The waiter was trying to understand the two men but seemed lost and so I spoke up in Tamil. His eyes lit up and we, two complete strangers, were smiling broadly from hearing the language of our home. For the rest of our time there he would wait for me to give a final approval to whatever the guys ordered!
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@PG
What happens if you can't speak the 22 languages?
On the other side of this, as the child of dominican immigrants in NYC, I never understood why my mother didn't make the effort to learn English ( as my father did. Our home was full of books in English and Spanish cause he was always studying something. ) But I speak Spanish because she didn't speak English. I would listen to the Spanish language music in our Inwood apt. and ask my mom "¿Que significa esto?" Mind you, my mom had a very limited education from the DR, 8th grade maybe, but she was an intense Catholic who devoured the bible and went to our local parishes, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs and Good Shepherd at least 4 times a week.
I remember visiting relatives in Santo Domingo and having my accent laughed at. It's only recently though that I learned that Spanish was actually my mother tongue even though I was born in NYC in 1968. When I was 4 my parents sent me to live in DR for a few years while they got their act together in NY. I returned in 76 in time for the Bicentennial (Wow! Still remember the Hudson full of boats)
I went to PS 152 for 3rd grade. My teacher, Mrs Fernandez was my guide to becoming a full fledged English speaker. In fact, she created in me a love for the language that still runs through me and which later on in my schooling led me to discover wonderful poetry, literature. But I never really learned Spanish academically. Notice it now even after living in Spain for the past 13 yrs I still have trouble reading articles in newspapers like El Pais.
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@leoelfeo
Boy, can I relate to that from a very different perspective. Growing up in the Midwest we learned German and some Norwegian. Only problem - the dialect I learned was obscure enough to make it very difficult for modern speakers to understand me. Put that on top of not having any academic background, and no exposure to German TV etc. What was being spoken when I learned it was probably already obsolete in Europe, and by the time I made it there I was certainly laughable, and no harm done. A dear friend of ours from Hannover once told me that the only time she could easily understand me was when I shouted at our dogs!
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@leoelfeo
Wow, there's a lot in your comment to think about. But a couple of things: as one who first began learning Spanish as a teenager, I have watched a lot of people learn, or try to learn, another language.
Before 6-8 years of age, it's pretty easy--by your teens you have to work at it a lot more and learn some by reading rather than just listening and getting it by rote. After age 25 it seems like it is extremely difficult for most people just starting, unless they are extremely dedicated. These are my practical observations: this seems to be a universal condition, i.e. American adult living in the DR, having never learned any Spanish, is typically going to have a very hard time getting very good at Spanish unless they are very dedicated and spend significant time everyday really working at it.
There are exceptions though, and those who have learned a second language earlier, or attempted a second language when younger, seem to have better odds later on.
My point is don't blame your mother for not learning English; the vast majority of people from anywhere, in the same situation, would not fare any better, and do not as a rule. Blame the way our brains develop and age.
Secondly, is that I have realized that being able to read newspapers in Spanish is practically like having to learn another separate language. It takes practice. A whole different vocabulary is used than that of common in speech and conversation--which may be the case with English too.
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@leoelfeo
Might your mother simply have been tired? Have you considered the trauma she experienced on being wrenched from all that was normal and familiar, much less having her family broken apart while she--with your father--"got their act together"?
Careful to not shame those of us who were not made to speak Spanish at home. When I started school in Pasadena, California, the only Spanish-speakers were me, my sister, and one boy. My parents let us speak English but they continued to speak Spanish to us. We communicated in both languages simultaneously.--now that impresses people!
I married a man from Uruguay. When our first daughter was born I found that I couldn't speak or sing to her in Spanish, it was not the language where I felt most myself. I started telling my husband "speak Spanish to her" but then I realized that he teaches and reads in English. Why make speaking a chore--the point is to communicate.
We moved to Brazil when we got married and I learned Portuguese. I became fluent and never expected anyone to speak English but it was a relief to meet an occasional English speaker.
So the moral of my story is, language for me has been something present in my life, a form of communication, but not something to be "proud of."
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When growing up in Britain in the 1960 I attended a Technical Grammar School. The biggest difference from an ordinary Grammar School was languages. We learned German and Russian rather than Latin and French.
I was able to use my German quite often and became fairly fluent. My Russian proved useful year later in business when I could often understand spoken Russian but not speak it myself due to lack of use.
My point is that being bi-lingual caused me to realize that language is just a tool. It is not who we are. It is how we communicate. It has made me work to speak clearly and help other do the same if they want to be understood.
It is our personal responsibility to learn how to communicate clearly or suffer the consequences. Those that choose to come to a another country without learning to speak the language well are harming themselves and their families.
The US should require all US residents to speak the most common language with some fluency. That is not racist. It is for the good of everyone, residents all.
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So moving and beautifully written - thank you!!
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I wish people in the U.S. would finally understand that bilingual does not automatically mean Spanish-English, but that there are so many other languages. As a person who is multilingual I am extremely bothered when people just say "we have bilingual staff" and just mean Spanish-English speakers.
We all should be allowed to embrace our bilingualism, multilingualism the same way!
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Thank you! My mother was born in Texas and her first language was German. Even some of my first cousins, born here in the 1950s, spoke German first.
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@xyz
I think the default "bilingualism" changes over time and place, at least in the US. It's now Spanish, but has been French and German in this country in prior times and at least until relatively recently, Spanish was not taught, if it was at all, with the frequency or French or German, in the eastern half of the US.
And when an overwhelming majority of the non native English speakers in the US speak Spanish, I can see why so many equate Spanish speaking to being "bilingual". You are right, we shouldn't assume "bilingual" means "Spanish spoken here".
I think many of the benefits of speaking (and also being literate in) a second language are the same whether you are bilingual (or multilingual) in Spanish, or Farsi, or Swahili, or Japanese, at least from a cognitive point of view. The important thing is just being able to speak another language--any language. It's not the particular language that provides the cognitive benefits and ability to get into the worlds of people different from your own.
That said, when you speak a second language that many others in your geographic area or nation speak, you sure get more chances to practice it and enter those worlds of those living around you many which would have been invisible previously.
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@Bing One of the great joys, I find, of being multi-lingual, is that often you can find yourself in a situation where others don't expect, or, comprehend that, you speak the language they are utilizing at that moment. It is like gold when they speak about you or others, often expressing their own truths.
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Language reflects culture, and thus being multilingual not only means understanding the speech of others, but the way they see the world.
Life’s circumstances have made me trilingual, including living amid all three cultures, and allowed me to understand multiple points of view and help bridge them within myself, with others, and between others, as intermediary.
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Thank you for this thoughtful essay. My immigrant parents spoke several languages in addition to English (Daddy spoke 5 others; Mom spoke 4 others) but raised my sister and me in the McCarthy Era, when they wanted to be sure we were considered 100% American, so didn’t teach us more than a few nursery rhymes in their first languages. ALAS we didn’t learn other languages until we took foreign language classes in school, never becoming fluent. Your parents did you such a great favor.
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I am an old anglo that speaks a passable mezcla of Spanish with bits of other romance languages thrown in. I interacted with Central Americans in the trades for 30 years.
In places like The National Institute of Health you would encounter families traveling here to partake in medical trials. You could assure them that the quality of care was second to none, make small conversations, warn them of Los Vampiras de sangria, also know as Phlebotomyy, and try to make their stay a bit more gentle. You want to hear that you are in the best place in your language if you are in that fix.
In a Home depot you can make someone's buying a bit easier. It makes for a better world. You tell them the price of your help is high, a coffee at the 7-11 when we next meet.
When I go shopping at one Spanish supermercado I am greeted hola carnicero and taken to the meat locker. I pick out my beef and have it custom cut, tip out the guys and off I go.
A young Salvadorian who worked for me go bit by a squirrel that he thought was dead. The local hospital had a Chaplin on duty who was from Central America. Jose did not want to get a rabies shot. In Spanish the chaplain explained that because god loved him he gave the doctors the knowledge to cure this terrible disease, and to refuse it would be to go against gods grace. The man was brilliant.
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I more than empathize with this writer, not because I share her views but because I absolutely do not. The title of this piece says it all: “the beauty of being bilingual.” The writer indeed is bilingual but how does her skill truly benefit those who cannot yet or will never learn English for whatever reason? Where is the beauty in that?
My parents were Italian immigrants in the 1950s who were shamed and shunned until they learned to speak and read everyday English. However halting it was, it was enough for them to get decent jobs, be approved for a mortgage and credit cards, and raise three children who became successful professionals.
I understand Italian perfectly and have a working knowledge of writing and reading it, which means that I also love opera and don’t need the subtitles. So, yes, there is “beauty in being bilingual” in that case. But that’s a “nice to have.”
Not being able to speak, read or write English in this country, in this day and age of an app for everything, free internet courses, classes at every high school and community college, only serves to hold back individuals who insist on living only in their native language. Like it or not, some Americans discriminate, and I saw that firsthand in what my parents endured.
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@TurandotNeverSleeps Are you able to simply hear her experience — without needing to pass judgment on it? Is it more important to feel “right” or to genuinely seek understanding of a view different from your own?
I appreciate the writer’s conveyance of what’s been so vital in her life. I hear her saying that speaking more than one language is a gateway to understanding other human beings— not a threat to American English. I also don’t hear the writer saying native Spanish speakers won’t be learning English; i do hear how immigrants work extraordinarily hard to transition to whole new lives, following experiences that none of us can judge or really understand (because we have not lived inside their lives).
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@TurandotNeverSleeps. I think this is a very narrow view of people or families that have not had the opportunity to master English. Many immigrants live in enclaves where their native language is the dominant one, to the point that they don’t need English on a daily basis. In some cultures women are sequestered, or at least housebound. My grandmother came to the US in 1912, lived in such an enclave for 60 years, and never had more than a rudimentary knowledge of English. All her children mastered English rapidly. I don’t think she felt disadvantaged by primarily speaking her native language.
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@TurandotNeverSleeps
I don't think that there are that many people in this country that "INSIST on living only in their native language."
The first generation "lives in their native language" because they are usually too old to easily learn another language or are so busy working they have little time or energy left to study. It's not that they insist on not speaking English--it's that they can't learn English. Most would like to be able to.
If one hasn't gone some ways to learning a second language seriously before 20-25, odds are extremely against your ever learning another one--very well anyway. That is the practical reality I have observed over the years. It is a question of cognitive development and how the brain grows and ages. There are windows for easy new language acquisition and by the time most of us are in our 20s, the window is closed or nearly closed.
Most every kid in this country and the world knows that if they want to be a success their chances may well depend on whether they learn English well or not. There are plenty of incentives for everyone to learn English IF they can.
I substitute taught a 3rd grade class of kids one time, nearly all of whom came from Spanish speaking homes. And when they played and talked with each other, they all did so in English. The kids only spoke Spanish with newly arrived kids who could only speak Spanish. No one was "insisting" they speak any particular language during recess, but they spoke English.
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Excellent observations. Thank you for sharing your experience as my foreign wife and I work constantly to convey the knowledge and culture of her native tongue to our children; the English comes too readily here.
I wondered if it would help those for whom you translate if you didn’t attempt to have them face and speak to each other as you translate in the side.
I notice in my wife’s country people assume I can’t speak since I look different. They’ll ask her questions that only I can answer and she’ll point to me to suggest they just ask me. That helps to take the cloak of invisibility off if just for a moment. But in some cases I think the native folk see me as visible, and as human, as a result of the gesture/exercise.
1
I really respect those who move from their native land to arrive in a strange land where a strange language is spoken. I have great sympathy for their difficulties.
However, I have no sympathy for those newscasters who speak in a perfect American accent but pop into a Spanish accent for all Spanish names and place names. It is just outrageous showing off, and it confuses communication.
I don’t speak Spanish and usually have no idea what they are saying. In a recent example a national news anchor pronounced a name in a Spanish accent. I heard “Malooloo” and had no idea who he was talking about until the reporter pronounced it in an American accent---Maduro.
In another example I remember from NPR in a story about a man named Gonzalez who was running for Congress. In the segment we heard him doorbelling and introducing himself in an American accent. But when the report went back to the anchor, she used a Spanish pronunciation for his name. Such haughty nonsense.
This usually only happens in Spanish. Why? Newscasters don’t pop into German or Russian or Tagalog or Cantonese when pronouncing those names.
It is just showing off and unnecessary pandering.
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@Chan Yee
preach! biggest pet peeve of mine. When only Spanish words, names, places are pronounced that way! The next person who tells me, a multilingual person, that they are from Mexico (with the Spanish pronunciation), I will name my country of birth in its native language .. and they will have no clue what they are talking about. It's the assumption that Spanish is THE only foreign language in the U.S.
p.s the same applies at academic conferences in the U.S. when people seriously read quotes from interviews in Spanish, but NO ONE ever does that in another language. I guest the next time, I just read the Arabic quote and just leave it at that.
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@Chan Yee I think one reason is that we have an entirely different relationship with Mexico, geographically and linguistically. SNL once had a skit imagining newscasters doing precisely what you mention, speaking German names with a German pronunciation, etc. So not everyone understands, but many do. I'm originally from California and while I don't speak Spanish well, it sometimes seems like English to me. I think it's natural for some people to speak words and names in their 'correct' (native) way when they know how to do so. I find myself doing it for certain words and place names I know from other countries in which I lived. It can seem silly not to, in a way. So, I don't think it's hsughty, more a combination of ancestry, history, and awareness of original pronunciation. But it would be interesting to ask some of tre newscasters who do this directly!
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@blw I was in Argentina and tried to say my name Marta in Spanish that I grew up hearing. But the art sound in Marta is very hard for me to say. The barista responded, it's OK to say Martha.
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I love hearing new languages. I always ask the conversant what language they are speaking that I cannot figure out. So far when I have asked, I have heard Hungarian, Flemish, Creole (Haitian), Norwegian and an African language (blanking on which one). Better than a trip around the world as the people are so pleased to share their culture, even if for a moment. It is why I want to teach English as a foreign language, to bring my joy of my language to others. Maybe we could all “just get along,” then
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Great story. Love the line from one of the commenters below, "another language, another soul." We are raising our kids to be multi-lingual...more souls!
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What has made this country truly great is the ability to communicate with people from coast to coast. It’s common language is a strength of national bond.
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@Del Miller A common language is a good thing, so is the ability to speak multiple languages.
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Having a common language does not preclude knowing multiple languages. There are countries that have multiple common (sometimes also known as ‘national’) languages.
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@Jason And thereby have the ability to communicate beyond our borders with the wider world.
Bilingual in French and English as a dual citizen of France and the USA. For me the beauty is in French literature. It’s gorgeous. From Le Petit Prince to Les Miserables and dozens more, I’m glad I was able to read such classics in their original language.
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Thank you for the insights! By the way, professional interpreters are supposed to stay in first person--to sound as if they are the speaker. It's an odd feeling either way.
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