How Do You Say?

Foreign languages complicate the simplest international conversation. Students need to remember konichiwa  is a greeting in Japanese and that por favor is the way to say "Please" in Spanish. When children in non-English speaking countries study a foreign language, they tend to learn English. Children whose native tongue is English lack this kind of focus. They have less incentive to learn a foreign language, because international business is said to be conducted in "broken English," and more than half of online Internet traffic is transmitted in English.

     Even though 2500 of the world's 6000 languages are in danger of becoming extinct, an English speaker needs to decide which of the remaining 3500 to learn. Perhaps, one of the other five official languages of the U.N.: French, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, or Arabic. Usually U.S. students are limited to the Spanish, French, German, and possibly Latin taught in their elementary, middle, and high schools. In college, students often are reluctant to take advantage of the opportunity to study a wider variety of foreign languages. TIME magazine (July 29, 2013) reported that the prime time to learn a second language is the brief period from three months before birth to six years of age. During that period, the agile brain readily picks up the pitches and rhythms of language (a talent that also can signal a student's musical potential). Since research indicates that learning a new language is easier for a child than an adult, those intent on graduating from college with high GPAs shy away from the challenge of learning Urdu, Farsi, or Swahili.

Eliminate language anxiety

People in different countries often do speak unfamiliar languages. Even English-speaking Australians call sheep, jumbuck, and food, tucker. But foreign languages are part of the U.S. heritage and current culture. Immigrant grandmothers sing babies Italian lullabies or ask children, "Ist das nicht eine Schnitzelbank?" At school, youngsters learn the round, Frere Jacques, before they can translate the words to "Brother John, Brother John, Are you sleeping?" In holiday pageants, they sing "The First Noel" and "O Tannenbaum." Youngsters aged 5 to 10 learn to sing songs in Spanish and German at DreamBank, a center created by American Family Insurance to host community events in Madison, Wisconsin.

     Without knowing the meanings,kids hear adults talking about: the hoi polloi, going mano a mano, the need for an ombudsman, schlepping over to a neighbor's to watch a football game, enjoying al fresco dining, and the enfant terrible. Expressions to avoid around kids: those found in How to Swear Around the World by Jason Sacher.

     Some expressions are easy to learn in Spanish, French, German, and Italian.

Hello: Hola, Allo, Guten Tag, Ciao

Good-bye: Adios, Adieu, auf Wiedersehen, Addio

Thank you: Gracias, Merci, Danke, Grazie

Yes: Si, Oui, Ja, Si

No: No, Non, Nein, No

At the end of their school days, children could surprise their teachers by bidding them, Adieu. At home they could respond, Danke, when their parents compliment their report cards.

     These days children have become accustomed to seeing the English words they understand alongside other languages on toys, puzzles, promotional give-aways from fast food restaurants, and instructions. Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that applies to Canada, the United States, and Mexico, nearly every household item is like a Rosetta Stone that now carries the official languages of Canada (English and French which is spoken in Quebec province); the United States, English; and Mexico, Spanish. When a child is using a crayon, adults can point out the name of a color, such as yellow, is written in English; Spanish, amarillo; and French, jaune. Words like warning, precaucion and advertencia obviously have the same meaning as do guarantee, garantia, and garantie. By cutting copy into the three NAFTA languages on a tissue box, for example, and studying copy blocks side by side, children can begin to spot other words that might have the same meanings. They also can to to a website, such as babelfish.yahoo.com, to translate their own copy into 12 other languages.

     Along with product packaging, children are exposed to foreign words in other ways. They might see a foreign language newspaper or hear a foreign language spoken in a movie and on television programs on foreign language stations. Some children's television shows, such as "Sesame Street," "Dragon Tales," and "Maya and Miguel" on PBS and Nick's "Dora, the Explorer," have made learning Spanish words an integral part of their programs just as teaching some Chinese words were part of "Ni Hao, Kai-lan" on Nick jr. By logging on to the activities associated with these shows, children can further their foreign language learning experience.

     Museums, monuments, theme parks, and transportation centers that international visitors frequent often designate wash rooms and telephones in foreign languages, Attractions, such as Longwood Gardens outside Philadelphia and the Jelly Belly factory tour in Wisconsin, publish brochures in foreign languages that enable children to compare terms in English and those in another tongue. These foreign language brochures are also a good addition to a child's foreign city/country scrapbook. Without visiting another country, shops in communities where immigrants concentrate may give children practice guessing the meaning of the Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese words on neighborhood signs. At the same time, seeing at a young age that there are Greek and Russian letters and Chinese and Japanese characters that they do not understand may protect them in later years from naively getting a tattoo that says something they did not intend.

Learning a language

According to the same TIME magazine (July 29, 2013) article and other research, there is a life long advantage to learning a second language. The flexible, resourceful brain of bilinguals used to choosing between multiple words for objects and ideas seems to develop an ability to reason, maintain self control, multitask, resist distraction, deal with conflicting ideas, and delay the onset of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

     Consequently, there is incentive to look for toys that involve foreign languages. Wooden blocks sold by Signals (signals.com) label their sides with alphabets, numbers, and animal names in Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, and Korean. In English, French, Spanish, German, and Latin, a book from The White House Historical Association (whitehousehistory.org) uses the names of U.S. presidents and words associated with the White House to illustrate the alphabet. Children are able to write their own fortune cookie messages using rub-on Chinese characters in a kit from Multicultural Kids (multiculturalkids.com/shop). Multicultural Kids also has sold dolls dressed in clothes children would wear in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Israel, Russia, China, and Korea. These dolls were programmed to recite greetings, numbers, colors, days of the week, and other words and phrases in the languages of the country clothes they wore.

     When it comes to teaching foreign languages, in general, humans have been more effective than DVDs and CDs. One experiment compared a group of babies who played with a woman who spoke Mandarin Chinese, another group who watched a video of the Chinese-speaking woman playing with the children, and the third group who listened to a Chinese audio recording. Only the babies who actually interacted with the human woman could recognize Mandarin sounds. Language development seems to go hand and hand with the ability to look into eyes, follow their gaze, and figure out what someone is thinking. Instead of going through stores and telling a child the English names of every item they place in their carts, adults need to begin interacting by identifying fruits, vegetables, clothing, and household items in foreign language words. To help adults refresh old and learn new language skills, book and map stores carry an astounding array of phrase books, pocket dictionaries, CDs, CD-ROM programs, videotapes, audiocassettes, and workbooks. These stores also carry foreign language coloring books and other items targeted toward children.

    Online, foreign languages are taught at openculture.com and at learnalanguage.com. Foreign language audio tapes prepared by the Foreign Service Institute are available at fsi-languages.yojik.eu and at fsi.antibozo.net. Museumtour.com offers those 7 years and up two methods of learning a foreign language. "Instant Immersion" uses association techniques on DVD-ROMs and CD speech recordings to teach Spanish, French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese. Or, for the basics in 25 languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Hindi, and Urdu, try "Talk Now!" In the future, we could be able to talk with each other in real time using Skype Translator. This Microsoft software is being developed to translate a conversation between two people videochatting in different languages using English, Spanish, Italian, or Mandarin.

     Ultimately, language is more than words. It influences how people interact. Some languages, such as German and English, are precise. Meaning resides in the words, and there is a directness in the way people ask and answer questions. In Japanese, Arabic, and Spanish, however, meaning depends on the context in which a word is used. Until people get to know and trust each other, they may offer vague responses. Since they cannot rely solely on the words they have heard, they are reluctant to commit themselves. In cultures where understanding requires a feeling for what people actually mean by what they say, personal and business relationships may be limited to family and well-known friends. New associations are slow to develop. Only when children understand how differences in languages determine how responses differ and how fast friendships develop in a culture, will they appreciate why a foreign student's behavior is not always the same as theirs.

(Also see the blog post, "Getting to Know You.")