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Your Questions About Language, Answered

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What do you want to know about language? (Tessakay/Pixabay)
What do you want to know about language? (Tessakay/Pixabay)

As we kicked off our weeklong language series, we asked you what questions you've got on the subject.

You responded. Now, we have some answers.

Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson checks back in with Marty Abbott, executive director of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

What You Wanted To Know About Language

What can parents of preschool children do that do not speak the language they want their child to learn? — Ann

"What we've seen is a number of people try to put their children into a situation where they are interacting with native speakers of that language, to have that natural acquisition of language take place," Abbott says. "So many people hire a nanny that speaks another language, and some people arrange playdates with children who speak another language. But it's really good at that age to try to put them in a natural setting and just let them acquire it on their own."

What kind of jobs are there outside of public schools for people who are fluent in another language? Advice for job hunting and networking? — Logan Westmoreland

"It really doesn't matter what career sector you're interested in going into, there are demands for bilingual workers," Abbott says. "Any sector that has a need for customer-service skills — the medical industry has a huge demand for bilingual workers, as well as the court systems, with court reporting and court interpreters. There are just huge demands in most sectors for language-proficient people."

What is the best way to begin learning a new language? — Dave

"The best way to get started is just expose yourself to the vocabulary and to start to interact with other people," Abbott says. "So for example, start learning about your here and now, your surroundings, what those vocabulary words are. And then how you can talk about yourself, because as you build relationships with people from other languages, you need to have your own personal narrative ready, so start to learn those phrases and how to talk about your family, and your background and about yourself. And then you can expand onto more abstract concepts."


Along with your questions, many listeners and readers left comments about how language can shape people's lives, like this one from Matt:

I do not speak fluent Spanish, but as a chef, I found it much easier to communicate with my staff in their native language. So I told myself and my staff that I wanted to learn two words a day. They took me up on the challenge and every morning, before their shift, we would trade [words] on a dry erase board. I can now speak fluent kitchen Spanish (and even some non-cooking related Spanish), and my staff learned a lot too, and they appreciated the effort.

Sierra Revis, a 25-year-old college student in Oklahoma who's part of the Yuchi tribe, shared this comment on our earlier conversation with Marty Abbott:

[Native Americans] only make up one percent of the US population, so I guess it is true when Marty said that most of the US only grows up knowing one language (paraphrased of course). Not to make this a story about ... US history, but as we all know, Europeans/Spaniards are the reason for that. Though some tribes were able to hang onto their language and luckily were able to pass it down. So there [was] and is a very small group of people (compared to the rest of the US) that defy these claims. NOW, years later, there are a lot of Native American Language immersion schools. I attended the Yuchi Language Program after school program in high school while I was also learning French (in the classroom). Now that I am an adult and social media is a lot more open, I see that there are more immersion schools across the US. More and more children are becoming involved and some almost lost languages are growing.

Learning a language involves the whole culture, [traditional] and modern.

Ken Loukinen wrote in about some of the language challenges he's faced since moving to Colombia a few months ago:

I use Google Translate and it was needed a lot at first. But it is very hard to have a conversation with Google. Nothing beats actual lessons, watching Spanish TV with English subtitles and making mistakes from trying.

And one strategy that helped commenter Erdmann Rogge? Read comic books in the language you're trying to learn:

Not only do the images help you understand the meaning of an expression but it also teaches you the street jargon and everyday colloquial expressions which you seldom get from textbooks.

This segment aired on July 20, 2018.

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