UPDATE: latest version of this argument, at my blog:
Promoting English as a global language
I do NOT see sufficient reason to waste my time on becoming fluent in any other language other than English. (My native language is not English).
Although (or perhaps precisely because) I work in the globalization industry, I strongly believe the world would be a better place if everyone also spoke a common language in addition to their mother tongue, and today English has the best chances to become that language.
Just consider the huge amount of knowledge that’s simply unavailable to you for the stupid reason that it’s written in a language you don’t understand. Should we encourage this by learning more languages?
Did straying away from standards ever help in the long run? Aren’t you glad all power outlets are the same in Europe and hate it when you have to buy adapters for the US, or the other way around?
Before you say that culture would be lost, let me tell you why it won’t. Now, culture in Chinese that’s not translated in English is accessible only to Chinese speakers. For all others, it’s as good as lost (until somebody translated it, into, guess what their choice will be: the most widely understood language – English). If future Chinese speakers keep writing in Chinese, more culture will be lost. If, as I propose, everyone learns English as well, those Chinese writers will realize they can expose their culture to a much larger audience if they write in English.
Finally, ask yourself what this site would look like and how useful it would be and how many friends you’d make from all over the world and how many cheers your entries would get and so on, if nobody understood today’s de-facto common language: English.
So stop this language mess. Learning a language takes YEARS. Is this how you want to spend the next several years of your life? Is your life so in order, and have you accomplished all your other goals, that this is the best thing left to do?
