On Being Unilingual
It is a sad existence that I've done little to change
I can only speak English, and it sucks. In this post, I outline who’s to blame. If you enjoy my writing, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. —FLD
My mother speaks five languages. My father speaks three languages. I speak one language. It is the saddest language outcome in any family tree that I know of.
For most things in life, it is wrong or uncool to place blame onto others, but in this case, I make an exception. Let me explain.
My parents
I blame my parents first. Lingual knowledge transfer is owed to children of multilingual parents, who become eligible at birth. Most people who speak more than one language learned from their parents at a young age. I am jealous of them, not for their superior work ethic or talents but because their parents understood that language is to be inherited, like eye color or a stubborn personality. My parents did not.
More complexing is the fact that my mother and father had substantial lingual overlap! Had English been their only common tongue I would reason that my handicap is logical. I could never be mad at an attempt to cultivate harmony in the home. But in addition to English, they both speak Mandarin and French. Mandarin, the second most spoken—and thereby second most valuable—language in the world. French, the socially decided sexiest one. My young mind could have been enriched with vitamins and minerals but like white all-purpose flour, it was not.1
Here is an incomplete list of language combinations (2 or more) I could know today but don’t. A statistician would tell you there are 26: English and Mandarin; English and French; English and Italian; English and Taiwanese; English, Mandarin, and French; English, Italian and French; French and Mandarin; French and Italian; French and Taiwanese; English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese; English, Italian, and Mandarin; English, French, Mandarin, and Taiwanese…
Generational wealth, hello!
The American education system
After my parents, I question the American education system, wherein learning a foreign language is rarely a requirement and almost never a byproduct. There is no federal mandate for students to learn a foreign language in America. In Europe or Asia or Africa, there is one. And in more than 20 European nations including France, Luxembourg, Finland, Portugal, and most of Eastern Europe, learning a second foreign language is required for at least one year.
Just three of 50 states (New York, New Jersey, Michigan) and Washington D.C. have foreign language requirements in high school. Mandatory or not, the classes kick in too late. If fluency is the goal, researchers agree that learning before the age of 10 is ideal; the brain is bendy enough to retain grammar and sounds.
I took four years of French in high school. By the end I had passed the AP exam and could convey simple thoughts and ask questions like “Where is the post office?” and “Will Jérôme be attending the party after he leaves work?” Like most Americans, after I graduated, I rarely practiced what I’d spent years studying. I had no one to speak with nor did I seek any. New language cannot survive inside one’s mind. Those four years were all in vain. Quel dommage.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 22% of Americans are bilingual compared with 56% of Europeans (the figure is reportedly higher depending on the source). In China, 300-400 million students are studying English while 200,000 American students are studying Mandarin. Americans are language-dumb, no doubt, but is it our fault?
Finally, myself
Learning a new language as an adult is ‘challenging but possible over time with discipline and strong will,’ which is precisely the category of achievement most human beings struggle with indefinitely: getting a six pack (abs, not beer), writing a book, training a cat. Not usually in this category: having children, getting a six pack (beer, not abs), dating the wrong person.
In recent years I have tried—and failed—repeatedly because inaction is typical without necessity. English is sufficient for my life in America and, sadly, when traveling abroad. Foreign countries cater to English speakers, which infantilizes us more; we get by with a good attitude or brute force. But knowing a language other than English is still on my short list of worldly desires.
I want to be bilingual so I can code switch into another entity—one just like me but… more law-abiding? softer? more quick-witted? spunky? Language is more than spoken words. The Roman emperor Charlemagne is reputed to have said that to speak another language is to possess another soul. If that’s true, my share of soul ownership on a global scale is diluted. Usually having only one of something makes it more precious, more valuable. This is not the case with language.
Do you speak more than one language? If so, drop a comment below on how you did it. If you’re unilingual like me, does it bother you or are you mostly whatever?
To give some credit, my mother and grandmother spoke mostly Taiwanese, and some Mandarin, around me growing up. I understand a large amount of Taiwanese and a smaller amount of Mandarin. Though I cannot speak either. I looked it up and it’s called receptive bilingualism. Better than nothing.