Bilingualism

From the Ottawa Citizen

Bilingualism a Burden?

What I get from this op-ed piece is that Anglophones (you could add French speakers and allophones as well) don’t want to be burdened with learning another language. Since when is learning another language a burden? Everyone should know at least two languages. In a global economy like we have today, speaking another language has to be an asset, at the least a sign of respect to the person your doing business with. We are working towards a quarter or the population being foreign born. We make very few products and import just about everything.

All Canadians (yes that includes Quebec) should speak English and French, you don’t need to be able to write a novel with your second language, just be able to communicate. In many European countries it is standard to speak many languages. These languages are taught from a young age and become part each individual.

Worse case scenario… You’ll be able to get some news from a variety of sources and get a clearer picture of the world than the one from your local television station.

What do you think?