Is It Necessary for Americans to Learn a Secondary Language?-As a Response to Dan

One month ago, my Caucasian friend, whose parents are respectively an Englishman and a French, told me that our new friend who just come to China from the U. S. is just a “typical American”. I can tell his definition about the phrase “typical American” was definitely not positive, according to his detailed descriptions. This had made me relate to other comments toward Americans from my other European friends, most of the comments concluding to two points - Americans don’t care about others (other countries) and Americans believe they are the center of the world.

I have to make it clear that I didn't feel this way before. In fact, I like Americans and the U. S. A. is my top priority among the destinations on my traveling list. However, when I hear these kinds of comments again and again, I can't help wondering what cause this kind of opinions and what is the so called “typical American". That is the background of article “The World knows about America, Whereas the America Knows Nothing about the World” I wrote a few days ago. In this article, my main idea is that the inability to master a secondary language impedes most Americans to get a deeper understanding of thoughts from other countries. My assumption is that few Americans learn a second language is a fact.

Dan gave me a comment on this topic, prompting me happily to give him a response. In his comments, he accepted my assumption - I hoped that I did not misunderstand -, introduced some background statements about the U. S. and explained his “opinion on why Americans seem to only care about themselves and display racial bias”. In my response, I just reiterated the language do play a key role in mutual understandings, even though it is not the only means for sure. Besides, I wrote that “As for other parts you mentioned, I would say that whether it is necessary to understand more about the world for American people would be another issue involved different value system. It is only a problem of choice," a part that confused Dan and that I would like to make it clear in the following.

It is the values, some beliefs in what deserves to do, that prompt people of a country to decide whether they need to learn another foreign language or not. For most Americans, they don't feel worthy of learning another language because they can use English, both in life and in work, to communicate with people in America and in other countries. They think that learning a secondary language has no pragmatic function. The choice they make just reflects their thoughts and attitudes about the world and themselves. And this choice may be another topic to discuss if anyone is interested in it. There may be nothing right or wrong.

I hope I express my idea unequivocally.