English? Francais? Espanol?

For the thousandth time since arriving in Europe I mentally kicked myself today. The reason? My laziness when it comes to learning another language. These Europeans are putting me to shame. Take for example Georg, one of my classmates, he speaks German (obviously) and is currently working on completing his thesis in English. Once finished school he plans on upgrading to a Masters degree in France. He's been learning French for years and last year went on an exchange to Paris. And, to add a little spice to his vocabulary he's currently learning Spanish. Four languages - one of which he's mastered, two of which he's almost mastered and the fourth which, I am willing to bet he will master in the next few years. Georg amazes me.

Then there's Lara. Now she really knows her languages. Originally from Croatia, she recently moved back to Austria after working in New York. As a dancer she has done an incredible amount of traveling and it shows. She speaks Croatian and understands Serbian. Providing the topic is not meta-physics (or something equally scientific) she can also follow an Arabic conversation. Ok, speaks one language and understands two, seems pretty basic right? Wait, there's more...she also teaches English, argues in French and Italian, and of course speaks German. So, even if we leave out Serbian and Arabic (because she can't actually speak them) we're left with four languages.

Four's a pretty small number right? But how many languages do you speak? How many languages do the North Americans you know speak? From my own experience the majority of the North Americans I know speak one language and dabble in another. However, the majority of my aquaintances who speak more languages don't have their family roots in North America. Come to think of it, most of them either have a parent (or in some cases parents) who imigrated to Canada, or imigrated to Canada themselves.

People are shocked to learn I don't speak French: "But, you're Canadian. Don't Canadians speak English and French?" Sometimes I go into the politics behind why not all Canadians (especially those from the West) don't learn French, sometimes I just give the standard "No, I just didn't learn it" response. As a result I've spent a bit of time pondering the North American attitude to learning languages. Geography may have something to do with it. Here I could drive one hour to the southeast and be in Hungary. Or, I could drive north and end up in the Czech Republic. In Canada I could either drive three days or drive four days to Mexico. Here if I drove for three days I'd pass through at least two but more like four or five countries.

A second possiblity for why people learn so many languages is the stiff competition. With the establishment of the European Union, imigrating has become easier. More paperwork perhaps, but easier in the sense of being able to tranfser your education over and finding work in a new country. There are an increasing number of graduates from Eastern Europe who are flooding into the EU. Many of the large multinational companies are looking to expand deeper into Eastern Europe and Asia so hiring someone with the language skills is logical. Austrian graduates will not only be competing with each other but also with a growing number of graduates from Eastern European, Middle Eastern and African graduates. Depending on your perspective, this is either bad (more competition for the few job positions available), or it is good (greater pressure to excel at more). I'm not saying there is no pressure in North America. Far from it. I just think that the pressure North Americans face hasn't reached the same degree that it has here.

I'm sure there are more reasons for why Europeans speak more languages than North Americans. I don't claim to be an expert on languages, but I do know one thing: watch out Canadians. Speaking only one language might not be a problem today. It may not even be a problem tomorrow or ten years from now. But, if things change, if we are one day competing with the Europeans? Better dust of that textbook and start expanding your language skills.