International travelers know what a formidable barrier a foreign language can be. From time to time, language spills over into the headlines — as it did last week when Fidel Castro insisted his brother’s comments about political reform in Cuba were “misunderstood.” Tom Adams knows about language barriers and how to overcome them. He’s the chief executive of Rosetta Stone. Yeah, the company with the ads featuring a hardworking farm boy and an Italian supermodel.
Q: Can you get along with just English when you travel internationally?
Adams: You can if you’re traveling to major cities and don’t plan to really engage. However if you’re trying to go into the field and really discover a culture and a country, then yes, you do need another language. I think that anyone who has successfully learned another language knows that the benefits are tremendous. Those that experience success communicating in a new language often describe it as life-changing.
Q: Let me confess, I’m one of the people who makes fun the tourists who try to learn a language before they visit another country, or worse, they tote around a phrase book and read from it. Convince me of the error of my ways.
Adams: I would tend to agree, people that try to get by with a phrase book don’t get very far. It’s better if people can learn a language the way they learned their first language, without translation, so they have an intuition behind the language when they are actually in country. I think it is wonderful that people make the effort to try and go deeper into the cultures that they explore when they are traveling. Locals will give you points for trying and it makes life more fun.
Q: As a student of linguistics in college, I always thought total immersion — which to me always meant dating a native speaker — was the best way to learn another language. Was I wrong?
Adams: There is no doubt that immersion-based instruction is the way to learn a new language. In fact, I would challenge that those who try to learn any other way are highly likely to fail. Dating someone from another country is not enough to learn a language, though it is very stimulating.
The problem is that if they speak your language you’re likely to stay in your comfort zone and use your native language. An instructional immersion environment forces you to use the language. If you’re learning the right way with the right immersion tool or service, then having a boyfriend or girlfriend that speaks that language natively provides a great opportunity for practice – as well as motivation.
Q: Why don’t more Americans speak a second language?
Adams: Fundamentally, Americans have not had the opportunity to use the right methods. Most Americans use grammar translation and classroom solutions to memorize vocabulary, translate the language and pass the test.
Learning another language works better when it’s done in a natural way and you can leverage your own language learning ability. If given the opportunity to learn with the right tools, Americans – like others around the world – can learn languages with great levels of success. Of course, many Americans do not travel internationally as much as Europeans, for instance, so there is less opportunity to use the language – and that does not help.
Q: If you’re monolingual, and had to pick just one language to learn, what would it be?
Adams: Choosing a language to learn is a very personal decision. I decided to learn Chinese because I was being relocated to work there. I know others who have learned Russian because they are married to someone of Russian origin. It’s a very personal thing.
Q: What are the advantages of knowing another language, particularly from a traveler’s perspective?
Adams: If you want to engage a culture and feel somewhat independent when you’re traveling, then learning and knowing another language is critical. Imagine the reward from being able to greet people and have basic ways of introducing yourself and making that initial connection.
Add to that the freedom and independence when you can experience a country without being restricted to English. Imagine being in China and being able to say “I would like to buy that for a cheaper price, what can you do for me?” If you do gain real proficiency in the language and are able to communicate on a social level with friends that you make — that takes the trip to a whole new level. Someone that speaks even basic Portuguese will have a completely different level of experience when traveling in Brazil. It’s life changing.
Q: Which languages do you speak, and how did you learn them?
Adams: I speak Swedish, English and French fluently. I learned all three languages through immersion. Swedish is my native language and I learned the other two as a result of living in France and England as a child. I’ve studied Spanish by going to Spain and spending time there at a language center and living with Spanish students. I also have a basic knowledge of German and Chinese, which gives me some freedom and empowerment when I am traveling in those countries. I learned Chinese by living in the country and using an earlier version of Rosetta Stone.
Q: Which is the most difficult language to learn, from your perspective — and why?
Adams: All languages are learned by people as they grow up. For example, an Arabic boy learns Arabic just as easy as an English boy learns English. There is really no difference. And yet as adults, we try to rely on our own language to learn the new language. Whether you’re learning Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, Polish, Russian you’re really learning the same way. All languages can be learned provided that you learn them the right way.
Q: When you’re learning a new language, you make rookie mistakes. Do you have any favorites you’ve heard?
Adams: When I was learning Chinese, one of the challenges I had was that the word “is” or “am” is pronounced essentially the same way. Depending upon the tone in Chinese, “shi” means either “shit” or “am.” In the beginning of my Chinese language learning experience, I would say “I am Tom Adams.” However, I was actually saying, “I shit Tom Adams.”
Q: How many languages should a world traveler know? And which ones?
Adams: At least one other language, but preferably two. In today’s world, if you know Spanish and Chinese you’re in a great position. You can travel throughout the Americas or to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and a huge number of people are able to understand you. Chinese and Spanish are of course important for business.
Q: If you could change one thing about one language — declensions, script, inflection — what would it be?
Adams: If I could change one thing about the languages that I have studied it would be the tones in Chinese. I found using tones very challenging since it conveys alternate meaning and it relies on your aural muscles and their ability to interpret those different sounds. It takes a while but soon you get there and there is no way around it.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Very informative and entertaining! I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for years–maybe I just need to break down and buy the Rosetta Stone program. LOL.
Mr. Adams makes a few valid points, mostly about the methodology of learning. But he stays in theory and ignores reality.
Why don’t American’t leans a second language? Perhaps its because 1) English is the dominant international language and by far the most common second language and 2) we’re isolated by two rather large oceans. The only peer nation that connects to our borders is Canada, a primarily English speaking nation.
Go to Europe, a continent praised for its bi-lingual populace and you quickly learn that the second language is either English or another European language in close proximity. Exactly the same dynamics as the US. Europeans are bi-lingual because of necessity, i.e. the reality of many small countries with porous borders close together.
While learning another language before traveling is laudable, it means that your travels will be severely limited. I’ve been the Greece, italy, France, Belgium, and Germany. If I waited to learn all of those language before traveling, I’d never make it to those countries.
Its also not true that you won’t be able to visit the countryside. Just find a younger person. They invariable know English.
Just my $0.02
I disagree with Adams regarding learning a few phrases and having a phrasebook in a foreign language being a bad idea. When you have to go to the bathroom, it’s a lot easier to point to the phrase in your phrasebook than to practice your charades skills.
I definitely agree with Adams about learning Spanish, however. For all the jokes about Americans being monolingual, Spaniards speak Spanish, and that’s it. Maybe Catalan, too, but definitely nothing else beyond that.
Learning Chinese (which dialect, Adams?) is a huge wasted effort, IMO. Trying to break your teeth on a tonal language that you’ll also never be able to read and write in is just not advisable.
Carver is basically right in his comment. We Americans don’t need to learn foreign languages, due to the relative linguistic isolation of our country and the predominance of English on the international scene.
Consider the following: An American from, let’s say, Boston can get in his car and drive 3,000 miles to California while remaining in the same linguistic zone. A Portuguese making a trip of the same length from Lisbon to Moscow would successively need to use Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, and Polish before arriving in Moscow where he would need Russian.
In my experience, if you speak English and at least one European language (French for western Europe, German for eastern Europe), you can always find someone to whom you can make yourself understood and vice versa.
The simple reason Americans don’t know another language: We don’t have to. In a nation of 300 million people and covering a large area, there is not alot of FORCED reasons to speak other languages except for maybe Spanish in specific parts of the country. When I traveled around the world I got thru fine with just English. The young of each country almost always spoke English.
As for the traveler with a guidebook I think that it is a perfectly legitimate way to attempt communication. Not everyone has the time or inclination to learn a language just to travel. If you’re traveling to many countries, it’s impractical to be well versed in many languages in a short amount of time. Everyone appreciates a sincere effort and even you mangle a foreign language, a smile and a guidebook in your hands will get you a long way.
I agree with most of the comments here, but think that the predominance of English speakers in the world is the number one reason why American don’t learn additional languages. In Europe, British people are surrounded by other languages but are known to be as bad as Americans at learning another language. Also, if you look at countries whose inhabitants are considered the best at learning other languages, they are usually countries where very few people around the world speak their language as well… the Dutch for example.
I do agree that once you learn even a little bit of another language, though, it is extremely rewarding. You will have a different experience and be able to connect much better to a people and culture. While these days you can get by with English only in many places – you will miss out on a lot if you don’t make at least a small effort.
Interesting post & comments! As a family on an open ended world tour, we are very aware of languages.
It is true that few in the US, UK or South America, speak other languages because they are blessed to be born in areas where their mother tongue is a dominant world language. Humans don’t tend to learn another language unless they have to as it takes a lot of work to be truly fluent in more than one language.
As monolinguals, we raised our child as a trilingual from birth ( actually started in the womb where language learning begins! ) in English, Spanish & Mandarin Chinese. We soon found out how hard that was in a monolingual country and by the time she was 2, we scaled back to fluent bilingual ( although we hope to pick the Mandarin back up during our years in the Far East).
Having done 1,2, and 3rd grade in a local Spanish school, my 8yo is extremely fluent in reading, writing and speaking her 2nd language that she has spoken since the womb. Nevertheless, she is still more fluent in her dominant language, English.
Languages are so important and it does allow one to experience travel at a much deeper level. We have spent the last 3 winters in Spain and our Spanish has helped immensely even in countries like Portugal and Italy. We definitely see the advantages with our Spanish, compared to areas in rural France or Morocco etc where our lack of French proficiency had it’s affect.
Spending extended time in Europe is one of the best places to learn ( and teach children through 1st hand experience) what the value is in being multi-lingual.A young child soon sees that those with 4 fluent languages are at an advantage!
But It is true, even there, one finds English dominates as the one language for expats and travelers to communicate in, but the more dominant languages one has, the easier things are.The key is really in learning dominant languages as they will have the most value. In Dubrovnik or Prague one will see many people from many countries speaking a common English to communicate.
Just as all Scandinavian and Netherlands children learn English, I think it is a shame that all Americans don’t learn Spanish ( especially in places like Ca, Tx, Fl etc with huge Spanish speaking populations).Languages are easiest to learn in early childhood & it would give Americans two dominant languages. Once one has two languages down well, it is easier to add others as one has more keys to decode. Learning languages in early childhood also helps in areas like math as one learns abstract thought very early.
Travel and languages are connected because knowing a language is KEY to deeply understanding a culture.One can get by without it, but one is more enriched with it. We find even learning some phrases in each countries helps, knowing a lot, makes it even better.
Remember, you don’t have to speak perfectly to be understood. Knowing just a little will get you far. Also, once one language is mastered, somehow, the others will come easier. So it is always nice to learn one, in the younger years. Doesn’t matter which language.
I disagree that people who use a phrase book don’t get very far. If you go and live somewhere, you need to learn a language. However for travelers, phrase books are very useful, especially if you try and get a bit further than page 1. Being able to just say: Hello, good morning/afternoon/evening/night/bye, excuse me, thank you, here you are, how much is this, I am from …, sorry, I don’t speak your language very well; is very helpful. Many travelers don’t have the time to immerse themselves in a foreign language.
The other thing that always strikes me about knowing more than one language, is that you learn about the culture of your own language. Especially when you get to the point where to discover that another language may not differentiate between two words of your own language, or when you discover that another language has two words for something you didn’t know could be interpreted twofold. Think of the proverbial 69 Eskimo-words for snow. Or when you discover that certain expressions are simply impossible to translate.
That said, Americans should learn another language, preferably Spanish. Most kids that are growing up now, will mature in a country that has a dominant Spanish population. It is important that everybody can take part of that culture. Or, more cynically: you do want to be able to talk to your neighbors, and construction folks.
I agree that learning another language can be very rewarding. But for good or bad, America is not heading towards being a Spanish speaking nation. Living in California for the past 20+ years, the reality is that the average non-Spanish speaking person had litle need to learn Spanish over any other language. Like other posters have said, English predominates such that with a good grasp of English, any other language, is far secondary, particularly at home in the US.
@ Carver: I didn’t say you need it. I said you want to know it. Do you never wonder what’s on on Telemundo and Univision? Don’t you want to be able to listen to the many Mega96.7s and Sun104.1s, because they broadcast cool music? Don’t you want your kids to be able to understand their latino school buddies?
I remember a moment on MSNBC a year or so ago, when all those immigration demonstrations were going on. I think it was Chris Matthews who remarked that he was very surprised to see the massive turn-out, to which MSNBCs “Latino-immigration Expert” replied: “Well, Chris, don’t you follow the any Spanish media in the US? There hasn’t been another subject on for the last month”.
Two things are important here:
1) It’s true that most Americans have no clue what goes on in the Latino-culture in their own country
2) MSNBC needs a latino to report on latino business, not only because the press corps doesn’t speak Spanish, but also apparently, because the press corps doesn’t know the latino media exist. Kinda weird, if you realize that MSNBC’s owner also owns Telemundo.
This is why Americans need to learn Spanish. You can not be a united country if you don’t speak all langauges that are dominant in your country. Check Canada and Belgium. Switzerland is the only who pulls it off, but that’s because every Swiss is fluent in German, French and most likely a third language.
Shall I? It’s too easy… So cheesy. But here we go: It’s a matter of national security that Americans learn Spanish!
I follow the Steve Martin method of speaking the language of a country you are visiting…For instance, if you are in France, speak the english words in a french accent, “I Waaahhnt togo to zee Hoe-Tell!”
Or if you want to order breakfast, Moo like a cow (milk), cluck like a chicken (eggs), Oink like a pig (bacon) and make a wringing motion with your hands (orange juice)
Ed
@Jaspar
I understand your point, although I respectfully disagree. The reason for the fractous relation in other countries is that they don’t have a common language that everyone speaks.
Truthfully, No. I am not that concerned with what is happening in the latino media. There are numerous ethnic groups here in California and I see no reason to pick one over the other.
Speaking for myself, most of my clients are Chinese or Indian. So I keep up with the happenings there. I used to work for a Persian law firm when I lived in LA, so i kept up with the Persian happenings.
I just spend the weekend with an client from Egypt discussing his perspective as a Christian growing up in an Islamic country.
My point is that your statement about learning all the languages is not true. I live in SIlicon Valley. Just amongst my own clients, I would have to learn Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, Spanish, Farsi, Arabic, Italian, Greek, and Russian just within the past year. Why should I prefer one language over the other.
I have a better idea. Why don’t we all learn English so we can all communicate with each other. Wait, my clients already did that… *smile*
I agree that there is no better feeling than putting in the time and effort and conversing with somebody in their native tongue, especially when they really don’t expect you to. It really is a must if you plan to travel extensively off the beaten track.
@ Carver: You can apparently afford to exclude certain demographic groups. A long time ago though, large national companies have decided they can’t (oprima dos). I agree that you can’t learn every single language spoken in a multicultural country like the US. However, you will see that your clients who did learn a foreign language did better than their countrymen that didn’t. For instance, because they are able to use the wonderful service of your business.
English is still by far the dominant language in this country. So, you can perfectly manage with only English. However, if you have to work in an environment where are lot of your clients or employees speak the same foreign language, you will need to learn that language, or you will be excluded.
Latinos currently do a lot of the “dirty” work. Cleaning, construction, etc. If you work in that area, you will be a better employee, boss, merchant, friend and neighbor if you speak Spanish. If you business is in Chinatown, you’d better learn Chinese.
More and more immigrant children are growing up in bilingual families. They will be better prepared for the multicultural world they will live in than kids growing up monolingual.
I strongly believe that immigrants need to learn the local language. However, a country will only head for trouble if it makes language an issue of pride, arrogance or exclusion. Again, see Canada, Belgium.
@Jaspar
The statement that I can afford to exclude a large demographic group is one of the misdirections used by folks who believe that unless we learn spanish we are excluding latinos. I cerrtainly hope that the two Latino clients I have coming tomorrow at 11:00am for an appointment don’t feel excluded. They were referred to me by an African American Pastor friend, who is married to a Chinese Hawaiian lady with two biracial children from a previous marriage. Talk about being their own Benetton commercial. I’ve also been the General Counsel of a two different business where the founders and CEOs are Latino and are fluent in Spanish. So no, Latinos are not excluded form my business
But you inadvertently made my point. You state that,
“However, if you have to work in an environment where are lot of your clients or employees speak the same foreign language, you will need to learn that language, or you will be excluded.”
Therefore, the language to learn is not Spanish, but the language of your clients/co-workers. And that’s my point. Most of my clients are Chinese or Indian. I have learned about Chinese New Year, Duvali, where the best Dim Sum, in Silicon Valley is, etc
Conversely, when I practiced on the Westside of Los Angeles, with a large Jewish population, the office celebrated Yom Kippur, etc. When I worked with a Jewish Persian Law Firm, we celebrated Ramadan and Rash Hashana.
The point being is that Spanish is NOT the Holy Grail of multi-culturalism. In being blessed with an international clientele, you quickly appreciate the fact that having a single unifying language that transcends race, religion, or ethnicity is truly the Holy Grail of multiculturalism.
Don’t get be wrong. I’m all for learning a second language if time and desire are there. Its just that the reality of day to day US life is that its not a big deal.
I shit Tom Adams – brilliant!
Totally agree that immersion is the only way. Much easier to do this when the standard of English in a country is not so high. So easy just to lapse into English to get your point across.
Watching foreign TV shows, especially with subtitles, can be a good way of “immersing” yourself in your living room to enhance comprehension skills…