Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Ryckman –Spanish and Chinese – 3/28/05 – 917.509.2186 Jim O’Grady, a journalist and professor at New York University’s graduate school of journalism, is studying introductory Spanish. At age 44, he has been willing to invert the traditional student-teacher relationship and commune with undergraduates. “On Tuesday I’m the boss,” he said, referring to the class he teaches. “On Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, I’m a cowering underling trying to conjugate irregular verbs with 19-year-olds.” Across town, Christopher Milla, a 23-year-old legal assistant whose first language is Spanish, is learning Mandarin. O’Grady and Milla are part of the increasing number of Americans inclined to learn Spanish and Chinese. Nancy Jervis of the China Institute on the Upper East Side said that the number of students taking Chinese classes has more than doubled in recent years. “We used to have 80 to 90 students and now we have more than 200 adult students and at least another 100 kids.” Similarly, Rachel Meyer, co-owner and codirector of ABC Language Exchange on West 29th Street, said her program has accepted an additional 350 students this year, most of whom are studying Spanish and Chinese. This is due in part to recent waves of immigrants from Spanish- and Chinese-speaking countries into the United States. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 1-in-5 U.S. residents, or 47 million people, age 5 and older claimed to speak a language other than English at home in 2000. Other than English, Spanish (28.1 million) and Chinese (2 million) were the languages most frequently spoken. At a time when many of these immigrants are struggling to learn English, savvy Americans see the advantages – including career advancement in a global economy and more exciting, diverse travel experiences – to becoming conversant in languages other than their own. “It’s so easy to speak English throughout the world, but in order to explore a culture in depth and travel off the beaten path, you need to speak the language,” Milla said. Milla’s interest in Chinese culture began during high school when he lived in Taiwan, where his father’s work as a Latin American diplomat had taken the family. His international upbringing made him predisposed to explore different ways of life. As a result, many of Milla’s friends, including his girlfriend, are Taiwanese and he feels a profound connection to the culture. Milla, who resumed his Mandarin studies at the ABC Language Exchange, plans to visit Taiwan frequently and perhaps move there later in life. He would like to pursue a career in international business or foreign policy and believes his knowledge of Mandarin will be invaluable as China becomes a major trading power. Similarly, Braden Rhetts, 31, began studying Chinese at her Minneapolis high school because she thought it would be the language of the 21st century. Rhetts attended exchange programs in both China and Japan and majored in Asian Studies at Tufts University. After college, she took additional Chinese classes at the China Institute before moving with her husband to Tokyo, where she took a course in Japanese. Rhetts has been motivated to learn Asian languages by both interest and necessity, but that doesn’t explain why she is studying Spanish now that she resides in London. “I’m driven by love!” she laughs, saying that she wants to learn her husband’s mother tongue and be able to communicate with her Chilean in-laws. However, she also sees the practical value to Spanish. “It’s so useful. As far as I can tell, pretty much the whole world speaks either Spanish or Chinese.” Jim O’Grady chose to learn Spanish later in life for both personal enrichment and potential professional gains. “If I learn to speak with fluency, it opens up a world of new sources, which is always good for a journalist,” he said. Additionally, knowing Spanish might help him better assimilate in his Williamsburg, Brooklyn neighborhood, which has a high percentage of Puerto Ricans, and will inevitably help him in his travels, both within and outside the United States. O’Grady sees a growing awareness on the part of Americans of the need to learn additional languages. “It’s become fairly obvious in our global age that Mandarin, Arabic and Spanish are hugely important languages,” he said. Additionally, as our economy becomes increasingly international, true comprehension of other cultures may become a necessity, as opposed to a leisure activity reserved for those wealthy enough to travel. “In the past, (speaking only English) was a luxury we could afford because we were somewhat isolated and we were an economic power,” O’Grady said. “But with each passing year, that becomes less possible.”