Learning Foreign Languages: Is it a hobby or a must?, ,freelance translators

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Learning Foreign Languages: Is it a hobby or a must?

sandre 2008

I just want to pay attention to how people of different nationalities learn foreign languages. My friends living in English Speaking Countries often say: Why we should try to learn other languages when the whole world is full of English. They mean English is spoken all over the world and I agree with them. But one thing isn't clear to me. Do they ever learn German, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese etc. as hard as we do? Or maybe they don't even think about other languages. Any ideas?

2 Replies on this Topic ( Reply )

# 1
cerann
2008

I think it is, as long as you're aware that one language won't allow you to communicate everywhere. Although I would say that English speakers in Canada would be understood by most people, except perhaps in some small French Canadian communities.

The opposite isn't true for French speaker however. I don't want to get into politics but the language issue is an important reason why French Canadians want their own country. If French was indeed spoken by the majority of Canadians (like it should in theory), I think things would be very different.

# 2
sammy
2008

Speaking of which, how would you, and others, finish this:

What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual.
What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual.
What do you call a person who speaks one language? ________

The answer isn't monolingual.

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