by BrendaL-18, 18 July 2008

Recently, I was told the following joke: “If you speak three languages, you are trilingual. If you speak two languages, you are bilingual. If you speak one language, you are American.”

Rude undertones aside, the truth of the joke is pretty glaring. In fact, when I heard the joke, I felt slightly ashamed of myself.

* * *

Born in mainland China, I moved to the United States when I was 3 ½ years years old—which means that I speak what some people call “Survival Chinese” (I have the vocabulary of an 8-year-old, I can do some easy-level reading, and I can barely write).

Pitiful really.

I don’t think I can really consider myself as bilingual. Instead, I fancy myself as 1.5-lingual. It makes more sense, given the fact that my Mandarin skills are so poor.

So far, growing up in the United States has lulled me in a false sense of security with my ability to speak English. Until this summer, I was pretty confident that simply speaking English would be enough to get me a decent job. Ha!

Over these past two months in Hong Kong, I have met a great many people my own age who speak not only Cantonese, but English and Mandarin as well. And that got me to thinking. In a country that is hailed as a vast land of opportunity, how has America imbued so many of its own citizens with such a narrow and limited perception of the importance of language?

* * *

Sure, most students in America are required to learn French, Spanish or German at some point during their school career, but the importance of learning another language is never properly stressed. In fact, in America, bilingual education focuses primarily on English language learners. In places like Hong Kong, on the other hand, students are required to learn both English and Chinese.

Europeans routinely master three or five languages!

Think about it: with countries like China and India becoming increasingly important in the global arena, learning the languages of those countries is becoming increasingly important as well. So if you desire success in your future field of work, heed my message.

My message is simple: to my fellow 1.5-linguists, make sure you take the time to master another language. Don’t be arrogant. Otherwise, you might just end up left in the dust by your bilingual and trilingual chums.