Imagine you are lost in a foreign country, and you can’t communicate with anyone around you. You probably would want to know how to speak their language so that you can talk and look normal. This is a reason why all kids should learn foreign languages in school. It is important that kids in the U.S. should learn about other countries from around the world, as well. We live in a world where we communicate on-line with people from all over the world. Schools should focus on teaching other languages instead of giving us less important electives or study halls. Only a small fraction of the people in the world speak English as a primary language. That shows that there are a lot of other languages spoken in our world. If languages were mandatory for kids in school, everyone would be more comfortable traveling in foreign lands too.

Let’s face it, today few Americans really know foreign languages. At the same time, people from other countries know second and third languages. This kind of makes America look bad. If students in schools had to take foreign language classes, then that would give America a competitive future. Kids today have more time to slack off than they did before. So many study halls and silly electives are keeping kids from obtaining the education they deserve in America. If the students in our country study language education now then the future of America will be brighter.

Another reason why teens in America need to learn foreign languages is because they think that the world revolves around the English language. For some people this might be hard to understand, but English is only the fourth most used language in the world. We need to educate in languages like Chinese, Spanish, and French. Only about 375 million people speak English in the world, while there are 6.7 billion people living on the planet. We don’t understand that there are a lot more people in other countries speaking different languages.

In our modern society there are no limits to what people can achieve. There are about 6,000 languages spoken in the world today. It might be nice to know a couple of these so that you can speak to people online. Whether you are on the internet or you want to travel, it only takes a couple of minutes or hours to do this. Speaking in a different language online can help you communicate with people from other countries. In America if you go to either Canada or Mexico it is very important to know Spanish and French. We need to learn these languages because there are more opportunities to use them today. As technology grows in the coming years it will be useful to know foreign languages.

As you can see there are many reasons why foreign languages should be taught in school today. English is only the fourth most spoken language in the world. That shows us why America’s youth needs to learn different languages. People do have their reasons to not want to teach these subjects. Some people live in areas that only have English speaking people. Also kids might not have the time for an extra class. In any case, I still believe that there can be made time for all kids in school to learn foreign languages. This quote from Martin Fischer backs up my argument very well. “Any man who does not make himself proficient in at least two languages other than his own is a fool.” We may not need to learn two more languages but learn at least one. As technology grows and immigrants come to America it is important to learn these language for the future. My hope is that schools start thinking about this in the near future.