Multilingualism

Those who know me know that I love languages; I speak fluent English and Cantonese and am studying French and Mandarin Chinese at university. I’d also love to learn Italian and Swahili in the future, but I want to improve my conversational French and become conversational in Mandarin Chinese before tackling new languages! Russian is also a language I’d like to learn, but the likelihood of that ever happening is practically non-existent.

I’ve always been really jealous of students in Asia and Europe who start studying other languages at a really young age in school¹. My cousins in Hong Kong study Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, and English, and my cousins in Shanghai study Shanghainese, Mandarin Chinese, and English. The kids in the French family I stayed with while on my French exchange trip studied French, German, and English, and the German exchange student my family hosted last month studied German, Spanish, and English. In other words, basically everyone I’ve met while on my travels study at least two languages at school, even the young students I met at some of the schools I worked at/visited while in Tanzania, but most of my friends have no real interest in any language, not even English²!

Maybe the reason why I’m so fascinated with languages and jealous of those who are multilingual is not only because of my own bilingual household, but because languages were never really forced upon me in school, unlike the vast majority of schools I’ve encountered overseas. I hate traveling to countries and being perceived as the ignorant American tourist who thinks English is the only language worth knowing; I want to know more about the world around me, both in terms of politics and culture. While I personally received a very good education up to and including my university schooling, there’s still so much I wish I was taught. Multiple languages are definitely one of them.

Question of the Week: How many languages are you fluent in, and what languages are they?

1. I don’t know anything about South American or African schooling, but I think it’s safe to assume students in those continents also study multiple languages at school rather than just the official language/mother tongue. [↩]
2. These friends I am speaking of are both from Australia and the United States, countries that are not known for multilingualism in their education systems. The exception to this are my friends who have multi-racial/ethnic families. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.