Wrongest ideas I've heard about language here in Switzerland

5. "German is a very difficult language": It's hard to learn any language, but truth is that for English speakers it's one of the easiest. Maybe it's harder for my francophone friends, but still, let's consider languages like Chinese or Russian before we start talking "very difficult."

4. "It will be easier for you to learn an African 'dialect' than French since they are much simpler": Yeah. OK. First of all, French is hard, but it's one of the very easiest languages for anglophones to learn since we share so much of the same vocabulary. Second of all, African speech varieties deserve every bit as much to be called "languages"; I detest the perjorative use of the word "dialect." Thirdly, African languages are quite different from European languages, which will make them difficult for me to learn. They often use tone (like Asian languages) which is not something I'm familiar with at all and they have sounds which which can be hard to pronounce.

3. "If you speak the language Berber you can pronounce correctly any sound in any language": I tried to explain to this misinformed Algerian man that this is not linguistically plausible, but he simply "proved" his point by making me repeat Berber words, telling me I did it incorrectly, and thus concluding that if only I spoke that language I would be able to pronounce anything. This has got to be ethnocentrality at its best.

2. "Americans don't know how to learn foreign languages or they're just too self-centered to care": As a linguist and a language-lover, I will be the first to declare that American monolingualism is a shame. However, I can defend it just the same. First point: all the Europeans I know have learned other European languages; I haven't met anyone fluent in Chinese or Arabic. I think it's highly probable that if every state in the US spoke a different language, as is the case among the European countries, that Americans would be about the business of learning to speak Californian, Texan, New Yorkian, etc. We simply don't have the same opportunities and the same needs for speaking other languages.

Second point: We lack some of the main motivations for learning language. Globally, financial gain is one of the main motivators. Swiss francophones learn German because in Switzerland you need it to get a job. Latin American indigenous people learn Spanish because that's the language of power. Around the world people are starting to study Chinese because of that country's newfound economic importance. In the US, however, most people don't need another language in order to make money. Even in international business English is the common language.

Which brings up another motivator we are lacking--the need to communicate. Americans simply don't find themselves in frustrating situations where they can't communicate because a) practically everyone in the US speaks English and b) around the globe enormous quantities of people now speak at least some English. When Americans do confront situations where they can't communicate in English I find that their desire to learn another language increases--for example, many people at church are passionate about learning Spanish because of mission trips they've gone on.

My third point of defense for American monolingualism is that it is a stereotype. Stereotypes are indeed based on morsels of truth but not the whole truth. The truth is that there are Americans who speak more than one language and there are many more who at least have the desire to. In sum: I feel monolingual Americans are more victims of the circumstances rather than self-centered bigots who refuse to reach out to others.

1. "There are more songs in English because it's an easier language to put music to": Linguistically, I actually don't know if this is true or not, since it does seem that certain kinds of languages fit better with certain kinds of music. But this seems like a strange way to describe the proliferation of English songs considering there's pretty much more of everything in English these days.