Learning Spanish should be benefit

I don't understand Paula Coughlan's recent letter to the Herald's Fencepost, about Obama's statements regarding teaching students Spanish. For the record, our nation has no "official" language and Obama's statement said "should," not "be required to."

Ms. Coughlan mentions that she learned German in high school and college and that she could get by in Germany if she went there. Would she prefer to not have that ability? I know I didn't like having my wife translate for me when we went to Germany in 1997.

Her letter implies that she shouldn't have had to learn German because English has become the language of the world, not just America (lingua franca.)

But how did it get that way? Not by mandating every person who comes to America must learn English. The answer is easier than that: Economics.

Communication is central to getting what you want.

So why do companies want bilingual Spanish/English speakers? Because they want the money of people who speak Spanish. Does that make it easier for Spanish speakers to get by without knowing English? Sure.

But that's why Chicago has Little Italy, Chinatown and countless other ethnic neighborhoods. It's not just limited to big cities. There are plenty of Midwestern towns that Scandinavians, Polish or other ethnicities moved to. It was easier to acclimate to a new country to do so. Did it stop them from learning English? No.

The world is getting smaller. As Americans, that benefits us by having more and more people learning English outside our country. But it also it means that to be multilingual is also an advantage.

Here are Barack Obama's full remarks. "Now I agree that immigrants should learn English ... Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English. They'll learn English. You should be thinking about how can your child become bilingual. We should have every child speaking more than one language."

Jim Howells

Elgin