Crushing the Stigma with Languages in the United States

When my grandfather was going through the horrible disease of Alzheimer's, which attacks the brain’s neurons, he had forgotten how to speak English and had gone back to only speaking his native language. I had lost my way of talking to someone who I looked up too and that I loved. This really hurt me. This just added on to what I had to go through while watching this disease slowly take over him. Only if I could have spoken to him during his last moments, but I am only able to speak one language like the 77% of the United States population.

According to too Kate Palmer from today.yougov.com, she states, “Three-quarters of Americans speak only their mother tongue, with no second language, a YouGov survey into language ability has found”. Many people outside of the United States, can speak one to six different languages. Yes, we are a very strong country in many things like our economy or military, but this is really putting us behind compared to the other parts of the world. We really need to get rid of this stigma that we need to make English the "Official language" of our country.

Whenever someone near me is speaking another language that I do not understand, I think it is so interesting, and I wish I knew what they were talking about. It is just so uncommon to hear someone in the United States to hear someone else talking in a different language and it just brings your attention towards them when they do.

Over the summer I met 6 Spaniards on this video game called Ark: Survival Evolved. They could all speak fluent English, Spanish, and German, they were also just starting to learn French. They would always say how they looked at Americans as being dumb because we can only speak English. I can see why they think this because since 2009 according to the United States Census Bureau reports, “Only 20% of the United States can speak another language while 60 to 70% of the world is multilingual”. All over the country kids grow up in a household where they are taught different languages. This could be a big cultural thing, but learning a language from a young age is the most effective way to teach someone a language.

Whenever we see an American reporter interviewing someone from Russia or Ukraine rather it being a soldier or civilian, they can all speak fluent English. You would think they would only speak Russian like how 77% of the United States can speak only English but they can speak multiple different languages.

Some people might say that there is no need for people in United States to learn more than one language because we do not border any countries that speak another language besides Mexico. European countries are sourounded by countries that border other countries that don’t speak their native language, so it is just kind of in their culture to grow up learning theses languages. Europeans also learn English because it is so commonly spoken language everywhere. They do this so they can interact with everyone around them unlike us. This is why some countries do not like us because they look at us as selfish and self-centered.

The only real way to solve this problem would not be a quick process, it would take years. First, I think we should make it mandatory to make learning about other cultures and not just language at a young age in our school system so kids can grow up learning about other cultures in the world and their own. Another way is over time we could start to teach our kids a different language when they are growing up so it’s kind of just sticks with them especially in the school system. According to Michelle Manno from www.Teach.com it states, “91 percent of public schools offer foreign language instruction at the high school level, with only about 58 percent of middle schools and 25 percent of elementary schools offering foreign language instruction”.

More states need to require elementary schools to teach a foreign language from a young age. Theses kids will then find it fun and enjoyable to speak another language which hopefully they would carry one their life and pass it onto their own kids.