I am reading Kaja Kabicka’s book “I lived in Shenghai: The China you haven’t seen before” describing her year studying abroad in Shenghai, China, at Fudan University. I will say more about her book and why I am reading it, in a future post.
She has many interactions with other international students (this is one of the reasons she chose to attend Fudan).
I am struck by how “global” many young people are – they have traveled much and many have lived in lived in multiple countries by the time they are in college
Many well traveled students speak multiple languages, some times very fluently.
I mentioned this to my wife who relayed a joke she once heard.
- What do you call someone that speaks two languages? Bilingual
- What do you call someone that speaks multiple languages? A polyglot
- What do you call someone that speaks one language? American
So true. Here in the United States, language study gets little attention even though demographically, about 20% of households speak a language other than English, at home (with Spanish being most common). These other languages, however, are spoken primarily by immigrants. U.S. public school students have few opportunities to study other languages, and when they do, it is from a very small set of options, and usually for no more than 2 years. This will be a subject for a future post!
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