Americans show little interest in learning foreign languages. Why is that?

Only one in four US citizens say they can hold a conversation in a foreign language. An insight on the possible reasons of this trend.

According to recent researches, more than a half of the world population is bilingual, which means they are able to speak two or more languages fluently. In Europe, an EU poll reveals, 54 % of the population says they can hold a conversation in at least one foreign language ^[1], but the same statement is done by only one fourth of the United States population ^[2]. Why seem American people so little interested in learning languages?

The lingua franca of our century

The first reason is quite obvious. In fact, if your mother tongue is supposed to be the international lingua franca of this century, why should you learn a new one? A US citizen can virtually go anywhere in the world and be understood by speaking her or his own language. However, in practice it is not always the case, as many people in the world don’t actually speak English. And, even if they do, learning another language still opens the doors to a whole new culture, made of traditions, books, media and small everyday expressions. This is undeniably enriching.

The second reason is that the United States are a very big country but, exceptionally, they are linguistically homogeneous. A European is, so to say, often reminded that many different languages are spoken relatively close to her or him; a Chinese or an Indian will surely encounter various languages when travelling in her or his own country; most of Africa is fragmented in a huge variety of languages with a little number of speakers. The US are different from all these examples: from New York to Californa people use the same idiom.

An essential skill

However, – despite the low number of bilinguals – 69 % of Americans ^[3] still think that knowing a foreign language is an essential or valuable skill. This could indicate that many people don’t study a language not because they lack interest or because they think it’s useless, but rather because they feel that they don’t have enough time, possibilities or skills to do that. Education plays an key role in this. The US don’t have a nationwide foreign-language mandate; studying a foreign language is rarely mandatory, and the offer of related courses is relatively low (58% of schools) until high school, where it reaches 91% ^[4]. If some investment is done in this field, Americans may discover a new passion for languages.

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