Learning A Second Language

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Introduction

Learning a language is quite possibly one of the most difficult and time- consuming endeavors a person could ever undertake. Therefore, it comes as no surprise, that a limited number of second languages are taught in schools across the western world, and languages are sometimes failed to be passed on to children growing up in a different country than their parents did. Even in Canada, an officially bilingual country, only 15% of Canadians speak English and one unofficial language (Statistics Canada 2008) and in America, only 21% of the population is versed in two languages (Logan, 2003). It has become apparent that there is a need for Canadians and Americans to learn a second language. For a country to survive, it needs to rely on other countries as there is no one country that can produce within it’s borders all the means to meet the needs of it’s people. Furthermore, with the threat of international terrorism, the economic crisis and environmental ruin looming above countries all over the world, governments and organizations need to work together to come up with solutions. These cross culture collaborations would not be possible without the ability of even a few people present to speak each other’s languages. Conversely, by remaining monolingual, skills and knowledge will become concentrated only in certain countries and as the transfer of knowledge will cease the rate of human advancement will slow. This report intends to discuss the interpersonal and personal benefits of learning a second language, and investigate different ways of learning. To accomplish this, I have conducted secondary research into the interpersonal and personal benefits of learning another language. These particular areas of research were cho...

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...lingual societies: Switzerland (pp. xi-xii). Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Statistics Canada. (2008). Knowledge of official languages (5), number of non-official languages known (5), age groups (17A) and sex (3) for the population of canada, provinces, territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations, 2006 census - 20% sample data. Retrieved March/17, 2009, from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/english/census06/data/topics/RetrieveProductTable.cfm?TPL=RETR&ALEVEL=3&APATH=3&CATNO=97-555-XCB2006009&DETAIL=0&DIM=&DS=99&FL=0&FREE=0&GAL=0&GC=99&GK=NA&GRP=1&IPS=97-555-XCB2006009&METH=0&ORDER=1&PID=89188&PTYPE=88971,97154&RL=0&S=1&ShowAll=No&StartRow=1&SUB=705&Temporal=2006&Theme=70&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF=

The Toyota Motor Corporation. (2009). Toyota worldwide. Retrieved April 7, 2009, from http://www.toyota.co.jp/worldwide/toyota/index.html

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