What would my life be without knowing any foreign language? I can't imagine this. I have always liked learning foreign languages, looking up some interesting words in dictionaries, or listening to people speaking foreign languages. This gives me a lot of pleasure and satisfaction. Besides, the knowledge of foreign languages opens doors – it helps find a good job, communicate with people, make friends around the world, travel and get to know another culture.
With reference to an article in the Observer I'd like to say that people who don't want to, don't even try to learn a foreign language and require that other people know and speak their language show ignorance, especially when they happen to stay abroad.
The fact that English is nowadays extremely popular around the world doesn't exempt its native speakers from learning foreign languages. I think that the British government made a grave mistake by removing foreign languages from the school curriculum after the age of 14. Don't deceive ourselves! Precious few young people will decide to learn a foreign language on their own if it's not compulsory.
I totally agree with the author of the article – not knowing any foreign language limits our possibilities, the possibilities for better, high-ranking jobs, the possibilities for getting to know other cultures and customs, the possibilities for better understanding of other people. If we know only one language which is our native language, we are, in a way, trapped in one world, one reality, one culture and we seem to be closed to new experiences. In this way, we don’t self-develop ourselves, broaden our horizons and knowledge about the world. What makes the world beautiful is not homogeneity but diversity, a diversity of languages, cultures, religions…
It is commonly known that the French are not very keen on learning foreign languages. They want other people to speak French and they usually feel hurt if somebody tries to communicate with them in English or any other foreign language while staying in their country. Last summer I spent 2 weeks in France. It was a kind of a Polish-French exchange with a 20-year-old history. Although some of the French I met have taken part in this exchange for 5, 10 or even more years, they haven’t learnt Polish yet. Why do only we (Poles) have to know French? Why don’t the French learn Polish???
