I know one language...and a half...

I read a joke once that Europeans are expected to know many languages, but Americans know only one. It really cuts to the issue-why are we, as a country, simply monolingual?

My mother, born in Italy, speaks two languages almost perfectly. Being born in Italy myself, I unfortunately have been rather lazy when learning the language. While I can understand it very well and even read and write some of it, it's harder for me to speak it. My mother says that the best way to learn is immersion. You know what? She's right. When we last went to Italy, it wasn't long before I was picking up the language. It was so much easier to learn when I was over there.

So why are Europeans known to speak several languages fluently? Is it just that they have higher standards than we do? I know here that my own langauge classes have been a joke. I took three years of Spanish, and I can remember the very basics-Hola, como estas. I think the textbooks focused on being pretty and flashy rather than on substance. It seemed to me that my teachers didn't try to immerse us. I had only one teacher who spoke Spanish to us fluently.

Of course, being multilingual has many benefits. You are regarded as more intelligent, and can have better jobs with it on your resume.

It's never too late to learn another language, I suppose, but it's frustrating as you get older. I notice my American accent when I speak Italian and it makes me feel uncomfortable. For the little girl who used to run and answer the phones in Italian, I ask my mom for help constantly when writing to my cousins. I want to make my standards higher-perhaps, when it comes to languages, we as a country need to make them higher as well.