I made it out of college with a bachelor’s degree in political science without taking a single class in a foreign language. ¿Cómo es esto posible? (Spanish8212;”How is that possible?”).

On one hand, it’s because I earned a Bachelor of Science as opposed to a Bachelor of Arts, the former having no requirement in that area, but the larger fraction of truth is that our American culture has suffered for too long under the delusion of superiority8212;we are the richest, most powerful country in the world, and if you wanna talk to us, vous le ferez en anglais, merci (French8212;”You do it in English, thank you”).

For most, our native language is effortless to pick up. Learning to speak and understand whatever language your parents speak is literally easier than learning to ride a bike. Your brain is basically programmed to suck up information in a variety of forms, such as smells, sounds, sights, etc., and this happens automatically. While Junior is drooling down his pajamas and staring off into space, his brain is working away calculating the statistical probabilities of certain sound combinations and judging them foreign or domestic, deciphering subtle shifts of sentence construction, and learning to what the word “doggy” applies. Sure, mistakes are made (put passively, dare I directly blame the children) but all told, by age 5 or 6, Junior is more or less ready to handle what’s said in his presence.

By contrast, I’m in week three of Spanish 1010 at age 29 and can’t remember how to conjugate the simplest verbs without concentrated, continuous effort. It’s fun, but if your native language were this hard, you’d give it up for your binky, the sandbox and Hot Wheels.

Our country is home to a burgeoning population of Spanish speakers, and China’s emergence as a world economic power has led to the increasing advantage of knowing Cantonese or Mandarin. But our elementary schools do not (in general) require study of a foreign language. Junior high schools might have you take a semester or two of something, most likely French, Spanish or German. By high school, the emphasis is more on college prep, so foreign language study can wait until college, when the thoughtful, reflective freshman can freely choose to indulge his curiosity about Japanese, Portuguese or Italian.

But because so many of us are in fact not terrifically thoughtful or reflective at that age, such a choice might not be made, and four (or seven) years later at graduation, the educational system confers a degree upon a student who is incapable of conversing at even a basic level with those for whom English is not the primary means of communication.

It takes a collective effort to change an entire culture, and there’ll be xenophobes aplenty until the end of time. But those who wish to embrace the wider world on its own terms would do well to realize that the age of American superiority is coming to a close and to engage others as equals means learning their languages. Started in infancy, bilingual training would set a student up for a lifetime of access to people and ideas, and almost effortlessly to boot.

And if perchance the student makes it to college without such a foundation, well, shouldn’t our universities drill it into our skulls, like it or not? Ja sollten sie (German8212;”Yes, they should”).

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