ANTHONY BROWNE: Waste your life, learn to speak a foreign language

The Times ^ | December 23, 2002 | Anthony Browne

[Wombat101]

Was forced to learn Latin for four years in high school...Did very well in it too...The major advantage was that I found myself having a better grasp of English vocabulary..

[Doctor Stochastic]

No, Mr Browne is wrong. If Americans spent the same time learning economics as they do learning French, they would merely fail to understand economics as they currently fail to under stand French.

[eleni121]

I'm not sure about Canada. Quebeckers don't speak it and when they do they sneer.

As for the marvelous English itself: I have a hard enough time keeping up with all the Englishes I hear. The language seems to be evolving quite rapidly with thousands of new words entering the lexicon yearly. Way cool! And we don't convene national language police ministries to decide whether a word belongs to the vast panoply of words or not like the French do. Vive la Anglais!

[DeFault User]

As several posters mentioned, the study of a foreign language is necessary to learn English grammar because to my knowledge English grammar is no longer taught in US public schools (UK?). For example, most students have no knowledge of objective case and nominative case pronouns and say things such as "Bobby and me went to the movies. Jennie met he and I there."

Students get to college without a clue how to write correct English. When learning Spanish, for example, they have to study the structure of grammar (unless it is taught in an audio/oral fashion only). Lights go on in their dimly lit brains when they actually realize English has an ordered structure and that Spanish is more complicated. Leaning the structure of language actually helps them to organize thoughts better and think more clearly. Not to mention the fact that they will be able to write correct English and be perceived as educated people. Can we have a cheer for Henry Higgins?

What happened to teaching English? Evidently, it went down the lou with other standards.

Another reason to study language? How about literature? Did you know that Thomas Jefferson learned Spanish specifically to read Cervantes' Don Quixote? Translations of literature never quite achieve the artistic level of the original language.

Some people may never have a "practical" use for another language, but the side effects can be enlightening.

[Clemenza]

I just LOVE how Limeys and my fellow Americans b-tch and moan about how "everyone should speak English" when they come to Anglophone countries, yet then travel/work abroad and expect everyone to speak ENGLISH. I must say that is quite an obnoxious attitude.

Besides, speaking as someone who has done business in Latin America: if you don't know the native tongue, you will be thought a moron and will be taken advantage of. Additionally, being that Old Blighty is economically smaller than Body Odor land and Deutschland, they're pretty much screwed when it comes to linguistic dominance.

I LOVE my English language, but this guy is an obnoxious Pommy a--hole.

[VOA]

Compare that to the actual footage of Japanese sailors cheering as the Pearl
Harbor attackers take off.

Maybe a month or so, I made an impulse purchase of a Time-Life heavy-stock
magazine format "Pearl Harbor" rememberance off the newstand (cost about $10).

It's a good coverage of the events before, during and after...with the great old Life
magazine photo-journalism.

What struck me after 9-11 was to thumb through it and notice a photo of a couple
(man and woman) on the streets of Tokyo reading a newspaper about the
success of their attack at Pearl Harbor.
While I was repulsed over this hearty grins, what got me was how it much they looked as
though they were imitating the society they were attacking...
they were "dressed to the nines" in Western/American late 30'-early 40's clothing.

This really struck me as I saw documentaries about Al-Quida and the Taliban...
for all their religional "purit" and ascetism (sp?)...they all want to be
using the best laptops, using our cell-phones and driving BMWs (OK, Toyota pickups as well).

The only way I can see it...they just want to subdue us...so we can make cool
new cars, guns and electronic gadgets...so they can be more "like us"...