Multiple Languages

Many of the students here in CYCU especially in my Business class can speak 2 Languages and some even 3. I have been pondering this for a while now and have come to the conclusion that Americans are lazy when it comes to learning a second language. I have heard this joke from somewhere before and it's pretty funny.

What do you call someone that can speak 3 languages? ~Tri-Lingual

What do you call someone that can speak 2 languages? ~Bi-Lingual

What do you call someone that can only speak 1 language?.... ~American

Which is true, I am actually fortunate that I am Second Generation in America and can speak Lao but I can not read or write it. Another point I want to make is that, while Americans are lazy(maybe taking 2 or 3 years in high school learning a language they will only use in class and not immersed in it, which pretty much means no true learning at all), many foreign countries have a little bit more of an edge. A lot of my CYCU friends have told me that they start learning English when they are in what we would call Elementary school. Which is way early compared to high school. Also another thing that gives many foreign countries the edge is the fact that many products/services around the world are already in English. Whether it be convenience stores such as 7-11, family mart, to name brand foods such as KFC, McDonalds and Pizza hut to world renowned products such as Apple, Windows, GM, and Ford.

But what I really believe to be the ultimate advantage for foreigners to learn english is the internet/computer. You can look at any keyboard in the world and via a few exceptions all have the qwerty button layouts and 1 more thing, many popular internet sites such as msn, yahoo, google, etc all have to have english in the url. So many people especially internet savvy countries are somewhat immersed in English and not really knowing it. While I am glad that I was born in America, sometimes I wonder how things would've turned out if I had been born in another country. Regardless I have made it a goal in my life to become at least trilingual and hopefully read a 2nd language. Whether it be Mandarin, Thai, Spanish, or Japanese will be a matter of time.