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apple_pathwaysAfter scouring the internet for days looking for a US-based company that imported a particular tea blend I wanted to buy, I started looking at European websites. Most of them I dismissed out of hand, as they charged between 20 and 30 Euros for shipping; 27-40 USDs. Definitely not worth it for a few boxes of tea!
I decided to try one more website: that of a company based in Poland. Like many websites, they didn't specify upfront how much shipping cost. I started going through the process of filling in my details for the order, waiting to get to the point where you're asked to confirm your order and they finally tell you how much it's going to cost to ship. One of the options I was offered was designated "personal acceptance", and didn't involve any additional cost. They way I figured it, "personal acceptance" meant that I would "personally accept" the shipping charges; meaning, I would be asked to pay on delivery. Like a fool, I selected that option and confirmed my order without knowing exactly what shipping would cost. I started to panic over it in the next couple days, but figured: well, at least I'd get my tea out of it!
Yesterday I received a call from Poland about the order. Turns out "personal acceptance" meant that I would pick up the order myself. From Poland!
The proprietor wisely figured this was going to be unlikely, seeing that I lived on another continent. Despite the poor translation on the website, he spoke English very well, and I was able to explain to him that I am not, in fact, an idiot (well--most days), and that "personal acceptance" was probably not the best translation for the concept he was trying to convey. (I suggested "personal pick-up" as an alternative phrase, but I'm still not sure that's the best way to put it. English: s'hard, right? :P) He offered to cancel the order and refund my money.
Talking with this nice Polish man got me thinking, though, about how so many people from other countries speak multiple languages, and how most Americans: don't.
Which is not to lump all Americans together: we continue to be a nation of immigrants, many of whom continue to speak whatever language they were raised speaking, and pass that language on their children. It's more common than ever to be raised bilingual. Unlike the days when my grandparents and great grandparents immigrated here, holding on to your language and culture of birth is beginning to be considered natural and desirable. When my ancestors came here, being "American" meant assimilating: changing the spelling of our last name and removing the umlaut; teaching the children only English (and saving the German or Polish for "adults only" conversations the kids weren't meant to understand); and, in the case of my grandmother, allowing the school to change your child's name to a more acceptable, American-sounding alternative. (My grandmother was born Ladislawa, named for saint Ladislaus. The nuns at her school decided to call her Charlotte, and that's what she was known as for the rest of her life. My mother didn't even know that Charlotte wasn't her mother's original name until a few years before my grandmother died.)
So, Americans with immediate ties to other non-English speaking cultures/countries are likely to be bi/multilingual, and I know plenty of people who became fluent in another language through study. But why not more? Why is it so (relatively) uncommon?
It isn't as if we don't recognize the value of speaking other languages. Though the stereotypical, "Everyone else should just speak English" Americans still exist, they're far from the norm! It's standard for schools to offer foreign language courses, even at the elementary level, and all major universities (as far as I know) have a foreign language requirement. (For liberal arts programs, at least; which is ridiculous! Engineers are just as likely to need to know a foreign language as anyone else!) The Rosetta Stone software, that promises to work magic, is incredibly popular. (And incredibly expensive!)
So what gives? Do we not start early enough? {Though I was exposed to foreign languages in the fifth grade (age 10ish) we weren't asked to choose and seriously study a particular language until the eight grade (age 14).} Is it not intense enough? Or is there just not enough motivation?
I don't doubt that cultural imperialism plays a significant part. I was amazed to read, on a fandom anon meme, how big of a part reading and writing fanfiction played in many foreign fans acquisition of language skills! For English speakers, media consumption provides no big push to learn a new language: even Japanese anime and manga, possibly the biggest source of non-English-based canon fodder for fandom, is widely available in translation. (Not to mention, the fandoms themselves operate, to a large degree, in English.) If anyone can think of a non-English-language fandom big enough to rival the English juggernauts, I'd be interested to hear of it!
I think I'm going to come up with a poll to explore these ideas further. (Watch out for that! :P) In the meantime: any thoughts?
I decided to try one more website: that of a company based in Poland. Like many websites, they didn't specify upfront how much shipping cost. I started going through the process of filling in my details for the order, waiting to get to the point where you're asked to confirm your order and they finally tell you how much it's going to cost to ship. One of the options I was offered was designated "personal acceptance", and didn't involve any additional cost. They way I figured it, "personal acceptance" meant that I would "personally accept" the shipping charges; meaning, I would be asked to pay on delivery. Like a fool, I selected that option and confirmed my order without knowing exactly what shipping would cost. I started to panic over it in the next couple days, but figured: well, at least I'd get my tea out of it!
Yesterday I received a call from Poland about the order. Turns out "personal acceptance" meant that I would pick up the order myself. From Poland!
The proprietor wisely figured this was going to be unlikely, seeing that I lived on another continent. Despite the poor translation on the website, he spoke English very well, and I was able to explain to him that I am not, in fact, an idiot (well--most days), and that "personal acceptance" was probably not the best translation for the concept he was trying to convey. (I suggested "personal pick-up" as an alternative phrase, but I'm still not sure that's the best way to put it. English: s'hard, right? :P) He offered to cancel the order and refund my money.
Talking with this nice Polish man got me thinking, though, about how so many people from other countries speak multiple languages, and how most Americans: don't.
Which is not to lump all Americans together: we continue to be a nation of immigrants, many of whom continue to speak whatever language they were raised speaking, and pass that language on their children. It's more common than ever to be raised bilingual. Unlike the days when my grandparents and great grandparents immigrated here, holding on to your language and culture of birth is beginning to be considered natural and desirable. When my ancestors came here, being "American" meant assimilating: changing the spelling of our last name and removing the umlaut; teaching the children only English (and saving the German or Polish for "adults only" conversations the kids weren't meant to understand); and, in the case of my grandmother, allowing the school to change your child's name to a more acceptable, American-sounding alternative. (My grandmother was born Ladislawa, named for saint Ladislaus. The nuns at her school decided to call her Charlotte, and that's what she was known as for the rest of her life. My mother didn't even know that Charlotte wasn't her mother's original name until a few years before my grandmother died.)
So, Americans with immediate ties to other non-English speaking cultures/countries are likely to be bi/multilingual, and I know plenty of people who became fluent in another language through study. But why not more? Why is it so (relatively) uncommon?
It isn't as if we don't recognize the value of speaking other languages. Though the stereotypical, "Everyone else should just speak English" Americans still exist, they're far from the norm! It's standard for schools to offer foreign language courses, even at the elementary level, and all major universities (as far as I know) have a foreign language requirement. (For liberal arts programs, at least; which is ridiculous! Engineers are just as likely to need to know a foreign language as anyone else!) The Rosetta Stone software, that promises to work magic, is incredibly popular. (And incredibly expensive!)
So what gives? Do we not start early enough? {Though I was exposed to foreign languages in the fifth grade (age 10ish) we weren't asked to choose and seriously study a particular language until the eight grade (age 14).} Is it not intense enough? Or is there just not enough motivation?
I don't doubt that cultural imperialism plays a significant part. I was amazed to read, on a fandom anon meme, how big of a part reading and writing fanfiction played in many foreign fans acquisition of language skills! For English speakers, media consumption provides no big push to learn a new language: even Japanese anime and manga, possibly the biggest source of non-English-based canon fodder for fandom, is widely available in translation. (Not to mention, the fandoms themselves operate, to a large degree, in English.) If anyone can think of a non-English-language fandom big enough to rival the English juggernauts, I'd be interested to hear of it!
I think I'm going to come up with a poll to explore these ideas further. (Watch out for that! :P) In the meantime: any thoughts?
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Date: 2011-02-19 12:29 am (UTC)The people above me mentioned the reasons I can think of; the US is bloody enormous, it isn't a big impetus for many people here, English is already established all over the place, etc.
I suspect I'm quite the outlier in this area, particularly in the US. As I mentioned in the poll, I've watched tons of anime and been extremely exposed to lots and lots of Japanese. I've seen so much of it that sometimes I question WHY I devoured it, but I've delved deeper into the why (and become more picky) so I don't feel as odd.
Yes, I've seen that much. I used to be a huge anime nerd. :D
Half of the music I listen to comes from German-speaking European nations or Scandinavia now which was quite the bizarre shift when I noticed it. I used to listen to tons of Japanese. So German is higher on my list - and my grandpa's first language was German, to boot.
Why I'm an outlier is that if some form of media doesn't have another language in it /somewhere/ - or at least some aspect of gibberish, chaos, surrealism, etc that I can't quite understand - it has a very hard time holding my interest.
I had three years of Spanish in high school and I tend to say I have another on top of that for my reading of El Pais.
I just need to find more weird things in otro lenguas!