I’m watching the arguments unfurl around Barack Obama’s comments on foreign language study, and I’m amazed. (Memeorandum has several lead articles with commentary. Here and here should get you started.)
People are fixating on various aspects of the statement, and totally missing the point.
Foreign language study by Americans has nothing to do with illegal immigration. It’s unrelated to tourism. And while there’s an argument to be made about cultural knowledge gained from the study of other languages, that’s still not the main reason why studying a foreign language (or two or three) is a good idea for Americans.
It’s a good idea because we no longer live in a world where the customer base for goods and services is limited to our own backyard. As the folks in the Rustbelt have noticed, this global economy has radically impacted our employment prospects. The genie’s out of the bottle all the way, and there’s no chance he’s going to be stuffed back in.
From my own post this morning on the subject:
[…] Obama is absolutely right — particularly for Americans competing for jobs in our own market, let alone against global competition.
Because it’s a relatively rare skill, an American who has full mastery of English, and brings a second (or third) language into the equation, is an obvious asset. Unfortunately, the mastery of English is also a relatively rare skill — and that’s an absolute must before one can add other languages with proficiency.
This is much bigger than “but English is the international business language”. That may be true, but it’s an astoundingly superficial analysis — in large part because the global economy does more than bring goods to (and from) faraway places. It provides job opportunities with the companies that do business there (and here).
For instance: Which job candidate do you think is more likely to be hired by a company who wants to expand its market base to…say… South America? Candidate A, who speaks English and Spanish? Or Candidate B, who speaks only English?
And what about corporations doing business in Europe? It’s true that most Europeans have multiple languages (including at least some English), so does that mean Americans needn’t bother with any European languages? Does anyone seriously think a monolingual American job applicant will be seen as an equally valuable potential asset as someone who speaks English and a couple other languages?
Or consider the largest potential consumer base on the planet. Do you think Mandarin (or Cantonese) might be a useful language in the foreseeable future? You’ll have trouble mastering it if you’ve never studied a foreign language before.
This isn’t about Spanish, or bilingualism, or multiculturalism, or illegal immigration, or elitism. It’s about flexibility and marketability. It’s about competition and jobs.
It’s about reality and the future, and it frankly amazes me that people are taking issue with Obama over this.