Clarkson Integrator

Issue date: 1/29/07 Section: Opinion

According to the U.S. Census taken in 2000, about one in five Americans speak a language other than English at home. That's about sixty million people. Most of them are Spanish speaking and living in the south, but this figure doesn't even include all the illegal aliens (they don't participate in the Census since they're here illegally). In a few years, native English speakers will be in the minority, and companies will be looking for people who can speak another language.

Being bilingual has many advantages. Along with increasing your marketability in the workplace, learning a new language can help in other subject areas, too. Understanding another language can also help you understand the English language better. Since many European languages all evolved from Latin, they are surprisingly similar in both sentence and word structure. Learning a new language will help improve your English grammar so you sound more intelligent in conversation with people. (And after surveying a few friends on what they think the benefits of knowing another language may be, some answers were, "You can pick up chicks, talk behind people's backs, it's helpful when you travel, and you made need it for your job.")

Knowing another language can help in other subjects too. For example, in biology everything is named using a Latin system and many scientific terms have German names. Not to mention those annoying standardized tests (including the GRE) and their analogies; most of these words have Latin origins and knowing French, Spanish, or any other Romance language can be to your advantage.

I spent four years studying Spanish in high school only to come to Clarkson and find out that I no longer had the option of continuing to learn the language. Sure, I could cross-register at SUNY Potsdam and take it, but it's negative twenty degrees out there in the winter and I don't want to walk to and from SUNY Potsdam three times a week. Someday, companies will be looking for leaders and managers who speak Spanish because so many Americans speak it as their first language. They won't need to be able to write a book in Spanish, but they should be able to have a simple conversation.

It would also be advantageous to have a short background in a variety of languages. Clarkson could offer a class that teaches the basics of three or four languages. Clarkson should begin offering foreign language classes because it's an important skill to have and it should be part of our $37,000 education.

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