Book and Journal of Mattanaw

# Challenging Learning a New Language

Author: Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh

Date: February 26th 2017

After many conversations about the value of learning a new language, I have concluded that there is a bias in favor of the practice of learning new languages, and reactions to challenges indicate that it is nearly a taboo topic. People seem to be unable to reason through the issue by making genuine comparisons, and side with their attitude.

It is easy to see why some people feel strongly about the topic. Firstly we are taught from an early age to value other cultures, and are required to take foreign language in public school and in college. This means almost everyone has spent years studying a foreign language. We know from the theory of cognitive dissonance that people tend to rationalize the rewards of anything they put a lot of effort into. Other reasons include:

- Sensitivity to the experiences and difficulties faced by bilingual people.
- Sympathy for people whose native language is felt to be lower value.
- Sensitivity about one’s own experiences.
- High estimation of the gains of learning a new language by those who succeeded.
- High value placed by culture on individuals who speak many languages.

After many conversations about this topic with others (whose opinions I valued immensley), I find that when presented with a challenge, they tend to evade questions in favor of making assertions about positive aspects of learning languages. Rarely will they share the downsides. Rarely will there be a cohesive argument leading to an unambiguous conclusion (“One of the following languages should be learned in these conditions…). It is an ambiguous conclusion: learning a new language is worthwhile. I enjoy it. But for who and when? In fact, I think people tend to be unaware of the downsides. Instead what is made clear are attitudes about language learning. They fail to examine pros and cons in balance. Two things to note: they fall in line with the multitude’s opinion. Secondly, they fail to see the gains of not learning another language, which are unquestionable (time will be used that could be substituted for other activities with possibly greater gains). Assertions tend to be qualitative and not quantitative. A few assertions are then considered”clinchers” — i.e. they are sufficient to conclude the issue. They are not. The positive asserions made tend to be:

- The gains in seeing the world another way.
- Studies about supposed cognitive benefits of learning another language.

Even if it is noted that it is worthwhile to learn another language, it is to be determined if it is valuable to require or encourage it in public schools, or in paid for university education, when the end result isn’t a specific use of the language studies. In other words, the time spent without any clear plans of application can be questioned.

What is clear is that our decision must be quantitative. Trying to determine it quantititatively with others who have an active bias is frustrating. It is not easy to do conversationally.

What measures would we need? This is what makes it all too clear— the measures we need are precisely those we would expect others to be biased about. What situations should learning an new language be considered? What language to choose: Concerns the relative value of a language. When should a language learned: (challenges public education’s choice to teach everyone language). How long should it be studied? What level of mastery? (challenges the view that people should automatically strive for oral, written, and reading fluency. Who should learn it. Some people do not have the aptitude or interest.

The time is coming when we will have universal translation via software. Now that this monumental change is upon us, we will be able to understand most of what our many neighbors say, without any time commitment whatsoever. In texts like “The loom of language,” that uses quantitative grounds for choosing languages to learn, the main goal is to bring nations together and not a unique (but undefined) cognitive benefit.

Perhaps travel and language acquisition in preparation for use is to be preferred.

No one doubts the value of travel for becoming more cultured and to recognize human differences. What is interesting is that the costs of travel are well understood, but the costs of language acquisition are not. For example, people would question a required trip to France to complete studies in Philosophy at a University (because money is associated), but are less likely to question the costs incurred by required foreign language courses.

When there is no need to learn another language, will you find yourself relieved, or disappointed?

Chances are, unless you are a professional linguist, you will be relieved.

But how can I make such an assumption?

If you are a speaker of multiple languages, I ask you to put aside your bias for a moment. Our culture teaches

Think back to when you learned a new language. Was it required of you, pressed upon you? Did you persist at it long enough to become truly competent? Did you maintain it? Did you add to your vocabulary, or did you learn mostly synonyms for words you already knew, in your native tongue. How much embarassment did you experience? Do you use it for anything useful, or was it mostly lost time?

People do not discuss it, but there are many costs to learning and maintaining a new language. It would be much simpler to learn a language that many people speak, with a large number of concepts, and rely on software to do the translation. We are rapidly appraoching the thime when language will be instantly and accurately translated for us.

What will it be like to be suddenly able to understand people who speak different languages?

We will learn new ways of thinking, new perspectives, new metaphors, new phraseologies. We will be able to quickly grasp entire conversations composed in novel ways.

But wait, isn’t that what the long and tedious process of learning another langauge supposed to do for us (very slowly)?

But what are the costs?

Would the gains of being a polyglot really be lost, if suddenly we were able to talk to everyone else. Would it make sense, to listen to what everyone has to say (including much that is unique, and different), to toil in learning a language, to gain some supposedly advantageous cognitive gains, which have not been thoroughly quantified?

We are approaching the devaluation of learning more than one language. Soon the question will not be which language to learn next, but which language to learn exclusively.

We will have devices to do the translating for us. Soon, without a doubt, we will have neural implants, or at least wearable devices, that will do translations for us on demand.

What would be the loss? While I welcome the chance to speak to, and understand, everone in the world, I do wonder what the cost is.

My first thought is that I don’t need to take additional courses in school that I’ll use for nothing, and that I will have no need to maintain a language for potential use.

But I hear that there are cognitive advantages to learn a new language, despite the requirement to learn a subset of your own vocabulary again.

Coming from a large country that exclusively speaks one language, with few neighbors, there hasn’t been much of a burden of learning additional languages to speak with neighbors. English is understood everywhere, and currently has the largest number of concepts (Some claim equality between languages on this point, but after counting, would you expect them to be the same, really?).

Once languages are automatically translated from one to the next, it would be beneficial to be a speak of languages that can receive the maximum number of translations.

It will disappear like the dictionary and the encyclopedia, it will not be necessary.

Will we find that all can be translated or that there are concepts in one language that must be first coined in another language first. Perhaps at the periphery, there will be a heightened desire to translate words at the rate they are coined. And with this translation we will see which groups coin fastest, although currently it appears the most concepts exist in the English language. We would not expect to count the same number of concepts in all langauges?

With the death of the need to speak multiple languages will we experience the disappearance of the language snob? The end of the many rationalizations of the efforts required, to attain and maintain?

Mattanaw I., formerly "Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh"

I am a retired executive, software architect, and consultant, with professional/academic experience in the fields of Moral Philosophy and Ethics, Computer Science, Psychology, Philosophy, and more recently, Economics. I am a Pandisciplinarian, and Lifetime Member of the High Intelligence Community.

Articles on this site are eclectic, and draw from content prepared between 1980 and 2024. Topics touch on all of life's categories, and blend them with logical rationality and my own particular system of ethics. The common theme connecting all articles is moral philosophy, even if that is not immediately apparent. Any of my articles that touch on "the good and virtuous life" will be published here. These articles interrelate with my incipient theory of ethics, two decades in preparation. This Book and Journal is the gradual unfolding of that ethic, and my living autobiography, in a collection of individual books that fit into groups of book collections.

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