PREPARE FOR GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP—LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE!

To be an active member of the global community in the 21st century, you must have fluency in at least one other language—but which one? Here are some of the great reasons to learn…

CHINESE!

  • China is one of the world’s oldest and richest continuous cultures, over 5,000 years old.
  • China is the most populous nation in the world, with 1.28 billion people.
  • One-fifth of the people on the planet speak Chinese. Mandarin Chinese is the mother tongue of over 873 million people, making it the most widely spoken first language in the world.
  • In addition to the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, Mandarin Chinese is also widely spoken in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the Philippines, and Mongolia.
  • China is the second largest economy in the world and one of the largest trading partners of the United States. Many US companies do business in China and have long-term investments there.
  • The heart of Chinese civilization is its rich heritage of novels, short stories, poetry, drama, music, and film. These offer insights into the lives of the Chinese people, helping us understand what is behind the language, what makes it powerful, and how it actually functions in Chinese society.

FRENCH!

  • French is spoken in 43 countries on 5 continents and is the second most frequently taught language in the world. (English is the first.)
  • 30% of English words come from French, and the two languages share much grammatical structure. Your understanding of English will be enhanced by your study of French, and vice versa.
  • French is the official language of postal services throughout the world, the International Red Cross, the United Nations, UNESCO, the International Monetary Fund, the International Olympic Committee, the 31-member Council of Europe, and the European Community.
  • France is the world’s most visited tourist destination, with more than 60 million visitors per year.
  • The United States trades with more French-speaking countries than any others. French is a primary language in Canada, our largest trading partner.
  • France is first in the world in trains and the production of luxury goods; second in the world in aircraft production; the largest manufacturer of television sets (HDTV was invented in France.)
  • France is renowned for its great art, with a long heritage of accomplished artists in all fields—major writers, architects, philosophers, composers, fashion designers and, of course, creators of world-class cuisine.

GERMAN!

  • 100 million people worldwide communicate in German, a vital language for a new breed of thinkers, artists, journalists, and travelers.
  • Germany has the largest economy in the European Union and the third largest in the world. It is home to numerous international corporations, and most multinational German companies are represented in the United States, including such well-known names as Beyer, BASF, Siemens, Daimler-Chrysler, Mannesmann, and Thyssen-Krupp.
  • German continues to be a leading language of science, literature, art, philosophy, and history. German is, for example, the language of Goethe, Kafka, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Mozart, Beethoven, Luther, Marx, Freud, and Einstein. Germany is one of the great European cultures.
  • German and English are similar. Many words in German sound and/or look like their English equivalents, because the two languages share the same ‘grandparent.’ Here are some examples: Haus=house; Buch=book; Finger=finger; Hand=hand; Mutter=mother; schwimmen=to swim; singen=to sing; blau=blue; alt=old; windig=windy.
  • Nearly 80,000 new books are published each year in Germany, comprising 18% of publishing worldwide and making Germany the third largest publisher of books after the USA and Japan.
  • German provides important access to the cultural and scientific world. A remarkable number of Germans have won the Nobel Prize: 27 in Chemistry, 15 in Medicine, 22 in Physics, 7 in Literature, 1 in Economic Sciences; and 4 Germans have been named Nobel Peace laureates.

ITALIAN!

  • Italy’s cultural importance spans from antiquity to the present, incorporating the Roman period and the Renaissance among the most widely studied and influential to this day.
  • Italy is one of the top five economies in the world. More than 7,500 American companies do business with Italy, and more than 1,000 American firms have offices there, including IBM, General Electric, Motorola, Citibank, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
  • Italy is a world leader in the culinary arts, interior design, fashion, graphic design, furniture design, machine tool manufacturing, robotics, electromechanical machinery, shipbuilding, space engineering, construction machinery, and transportation equipment.
  • According to UNESCO, over 60% of the world’s art treasures are found in Italy. Some of the most important Western artists, from Giotto to Michelangelo, were Italian.
  • Italy has produced some of the world’s most important writers and thinkers, including Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Verga, Pirandello, and Gramsci.
  • Since Roman times, Italy has exported its literature and culture to other parts of the world in the areas of Latin literature, humanism, opera, film, science, political thought, fashion, design, and cuisine. Knowing Italian allows you to understand, appreciate, and analyze this treasury of human experience.

SPANISH!

  • Over 300 million people speak Spanish worldwide, making it one of the largest markets for businesses and one of the most useful languages in the world for travel.
  • Close to 30 million people in the United States are Hispanic, and soon one out of every six people living in the US will be Hispanic. One need not travel abroad to make daily use of this language.
  • Employers in every profession—medical, government, legal, journalism, finance, education, sales—are seeking applicants who can speak Spanish.
  • A large and important body of literary work is in Spanish, and Spanish-language films are among the most celebrated movies being made today. At last count, there were more than 16,000 Spanish publications, 250 Spanish television stations, and 5,100 Spanish radio stations.
  • Learning Spanish can help you learn the other Latin-based languages such as French and Italian. These languages all have Indo-European roots and share some characteristics, such as gender and extensive conjugation, that are present in Spanish but not English.
  • Knowing Spanish can enhance your travel experiences. US citizens spend more travel time in Spanish-speaking countries than in any other non-English speaking nations. Spanish is the official language in 21 countries and an official language in the European Union, UNESCO, GATT, and many other international organizations.