The Global Village: The Importance of Knowing Many Languages

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“Bonjour”,” god dag”, “hyvää paivää”, and “hello” were part of my vocabulary when I first came here in USA. I am from Finland, which has two main languages; Finnish and Swedish. I also started English courses in elementary school and French in high school. I have always been really interested about different foreign languages, because it introduces me to different countries and cultures. It also helps me to communicate with people around the world while I am traveling. There are also many other advantages to learn foreign language, like for example to get better job, and be able to communicate with foreigners in or out of your own country. Because of English I was able to come here in NCWC to get my college degree. When I first came to North Carolina Wesleyan College at spring 2008 I planned to continue with my French studies, and maybe start Spanish. I was really surprised and mad that the school didn’t offer any foreign languages at that time. I couldn’t believe that college in this big and global country couldn’t offer even Spanish, even though Hispanic origin is the nation’s largest ethnic/race minority (lahde). The world has become a global village and so on foreign languages are even more important. Now when the world is more international, it is important to know different languages. Student exchange programs have increased a lot, mostly because young students want to improve their foreign languages and learn more about different cultures. As we know that language and culture goes hand in hand. For me, without learning English at school it couldn’t be possible to come here and study in English. Also now when traveling around the world has become easier and cheaper, it is useful to know even little bit about the particula... ... middle of paper ... ... Sullivan admits that there are students that are interested about different foreign language programs, but still he thinks that language programs wouldn’t bring more students in to NCWC. My survey reveals that 29 out of 30 studied French or Spanish in High school. 60% (18 out of 30) can speak more than 2 languages. I also made survey for international students and it revealed that they are use to learn at least 2 foreign languages in middle school and high school. There were many students who were surprised that NCWC doesn’t offer any languages. “It was shocking to me that our school is the only school in our conference without a foreign language course” says Javon Boddie. Freshman Dennis Tasche from Germany thinks that it would be great if school would offer foreign languages. “That could be great for American’s to learn a different language”, he continues.

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