Brady TOTALLY summed up my thoughts in response to Grey's thoughts about language. Particularly advocating for the empathy you gain with a community greater than your own when you learn another language. Very well spoken.

Hahahaha, that ending! I actually laughed out loud.

"You've clarified me into greater anger!" lol

Proposing technology replace real world foreign language interaction is a rather first world and English-centric concept. In many countries outside of the US or UK and commonwealth nations, said technology is totally inaccessible. As a Russian immigrant to the US, as a French, Spanish, and ESL teacher, and as an avid traveler, there have been many moments where I haven't had the luxury of wi-fi/4G/electronic translating device to use as a crutch in daily experiences. Additionally, when you show others that you've made an effort to actually learn their language instead of merely relying on technology, you display a degree of respect and humility towards whomever you happen to be speaking with. In short, I entirely agree with Brady.

Clicked on the CGP Grey in Brady's house link and immediately shouted "THAT'S FROM SPONGEBOB!!! THE SPONGEBOB BC EPISODE!!!" lololol

As a Latin Teacher, I can relate to all that you've said about curriculum problems in the UK and the US. Both the fruitlessness of language teaching, and sciences. Three ideas to add to the conversation. (1) Latin teaching doesn't just open you to other cultures, but gives you a sense of other times and puts the modern world into some kind of chronological context in a way that history class rarely can. (2) Languages don't translate. I know that for most practical purposes they do, and I understand that computers may be able to do this all soon. But, poetry is killed in translation, the art of language is "lost in translation". Nothing has helped myself and my pupils to understand literature and the beauty of language than examining foreign literature. (3) The problem with both science and arts teaching may be trying to compromise with too much in the curriculum, and trying to only cover what's necessary. If we doubled down, and required real fluency in at least one foreign language, or similarly required much more than rudimentary science exposure, we might be better off. By doing this we would get past all the mechanical, learn-by-rote elements of any subject.

I have been forced to learn English in school for eight years and am now able to listen to this podcast. It wasn't fun but it proved very useful. Despite this, most of the French I also had to learn wasn't that useful and is gone now.

I really appreciate the ending :P

I'm currently learning Japanese so that I can teach English in Japan. I think that acquiring a second language is an invaluable skill if you're going to use it.

The issue of languages is not whether or not they're useful. They're made useful through how you're taught said language. I am Spanish, and speak English and German fluently, and I can babble in French enough to orient myself and survive alone in France. Grey here trips over something I've seen him struggle with whenever languages are discussed on this show, and it's his anglocentrism. One can be very cynical and very comfortable in dismissing the teaching of languages when you are born into the current lingua franca of the world. I find it very hard to believe that if we lived in an alternate universe in which another language had risen to become the main international language, that he'd say the same. Grey, your success is largely based on languages being relevant. The fact that the rest of us spend years of our lives learning English is what allows for your business to be an international one. It is what is internationalizing the world. That we are the ones making the effort for you shouldn't belittle it. Also, you might be interested in reading of the benefits of bilingual learning for the development of the brain. That languages are taught wrong right now doesn't mean that the benefit of learning languages is actually a lot higher (even from a behavioral point of view) than say Physics ever will be. Being bilingual *actually* changes the way you think. Learning two languages actually helps your brain develop across the board, if done anywhere before the age of 7. You might've missed your chance to do so, but that shouldn't make it the default right position. I feel like the U.S. as a whole would benefit greatly from say, teaching spanish as a native language from birth, being that it's very relevant to you, and will be in the future, for example. The problem is that your metrics always take into account learning languages as foreign ones, when the actual developmental advantage comes from learning them as native tongues.

"I will edit this, out, this is... the editing out, song" So cute!

"the language of love?" - hilarious! XD btw: learning english is very rewarding. now i have access to quality podcasts like this.

west coast is best coast sir, Perfectly Standard Time

I agree with most of it, regarding being a language lover. But what CGP misses, is the huge benefit of being more self-aware of the world-view someone develops in one language. Especially for English natives. It also would help him reading sources in foreign languages. I'm a little bit shocked how he thinks about the topic. Because it can be easily reversed. The ability of speaking another language should be mandatory for everyone, and not just for people who might be able to use it in a job. Being able to understand another language doesn't open the door to communicate with another human being only, but adds another set of linguistical mindset, another toolbox of words. Our language limits the way we are able to think, everyone who read 1984 knows that well enough. And everyone who is really able to speak a foreign language understands this. But I agree with the notion that the way how foreign languages are teached in school is bad.

I was fored into 5 years of French, and now I can still only pick out words in a coversation. I think if they taught practical French instead of endlessly conjugating verbs it've been useful.

When you live in Belgium and you had to learn Dutch, French, English and German in school.

What about moving the language learning to an earlier point in the school system so it comes during more formative years and is therefore more effective?

The photo's from spongebob i think :P

About 1:10:00, just want to point out that if your birth language isn't english, there is no longer just holidays and occasional moments when you will be required to speak another language fluently enough to get the amount of informations needed out of your pipe line to the other person. There is no easy answer to this (I think), but I am very grateful that I had to learn English it opened up so much opportunities to me. I would probably not be able to work in my field without that, so until we get to the star-trek translator, it is still a good and important thing to learn this stuff even it it is not in a school as we think of it, but certainly it is good business that people communicate efficiently.

As an (American) English language teacher living in Germany, I am definitely a fan of language diversity. I think that our language and cultural diversity is something to be treasured and not devalued. I am actively learning the local language, and while it is difficult, it is a wonderful, enriching experience. We should all endeavor to learn at least one second language and travel as much as possible. :)

Personally I love learning new languages, I think it is a very useful skill to be able to communicate to people in different countries.

The image is from the Prehistoric Spongebob Squarepants Special! I've only seen it 7 million times... But hey, look, its coming in handy!

You guys talking about school makes me appriciate dutch education so much. Btw I learned both german and french at an adequate level in high school. Not to mention proper english

Honestly, it just sounds like he had an especially bad language course, and now is judging all language courses based on that. At least at my school, everyone was at a basic competency level by the end, and while inevitably some stuff was lost people remembered most of it from year to year.

It's kind of funny that the kind of mandatory programming courses I'm offered at university are very selective and aren't used in the industry.

Tbh I think it's pretty entitled to expect us all to just welcome English as the One Supreme Lingua Franca That We All Must Learn? In general I think there should be much more choice involved across the board, so I'm not necessarily against making a large part of foreign language classes elective, since I think most things should be after a certain point anyway (I've known I would not be interested in or retain most of my math and science classes since I was in my tweens), but I just think anglophones lack an appreciation for the fact that literally everyone else in the world are learning English to be able to communicate efficiently with them and each other. From someone who has a habit of comparing the original to the translation both in the cases of English, Scandinavian languages and German, I can tell you that most of the time there are subtleties that will get lost in translation. Which I know probably isn't important on a larger scale, but being able to fully appreciate something in it's original form is far different from just getting it translated. And while I accept the technology argument, I don't think the fact that people don't end up learning those languages a very compelling argument; a big reason for that is simply poor teaching methods, which could be changed.

"There has been another criticism of that podcast." "Yah, yah?" "That it ends to abruptly." "Oh yeah, I wanted to mention this, I wanted to mention this." ~The End~ You darn trolls, you. :D lol

So, he degrades language class basically because 1. he had a bad and long time learning something he didn't enjoy (foreign language), 2. he could do basic communication using Google translation, and 3. it doesn't make economical sense? He's missing points in all three of them. 1. that applies to anything one dislikes. 2. automatic translation is terrible at any level above survival-level communication (especially between less related languages like English and Japanese). 3. if you judge subjects merely by future income, we need P.E. and art far less than foreign language (though I make a living as a designer and loved art class in school). Benefit and income are not the same word. I agree that school education in most countries is far behind society demand and computer science should be introduced, but eliminating foreign language class in exchange because of his reasons seems utterly wrong to me.

I'm very happy with Brady in this video.

"I'm not the one who's gonna get the D" -CGPGrey

You do understand, that there are schools in the world where English is not a teaching language? =) And in those schools English Language - is A Foreign language class. And not sure if you agree (sarcasm) but this one is pretty important in modern globilized world. So, this talk about importance of Foreign language classes in school is applied to UK, AU, US and what else? I am from Estonia. My school was in Russian, and we had two Foreign language courses (foreign for me): English (world most speaking one) and Estonian (Official country language) Both of those were pretty important!

Grey! Why are you like an older version of me?! when you said "I would make one language necessary" I immediately thought sign language and that is something I have thought for YEARS! Especially when I was taking a language course that ultimately taught me nothing and was a complete time sink for me. Also the whole think about clutter. I can't stand having junk around. The worst offender being holiday cards.

Thanks for putting these on KZfaq. This channel has ended up becoming my main form of notification for when the audio podcast has come out on iTunes.

I couldn't disagree more with CP grey's take on "foreign" languages. Languages are central to how you perceive the world around you, and can allow or deny the possibility of expressing certain thoughts in a clear manner. I was raised bilingual, studied three foreign languages at school, and learned five more later on, and I can tell for sure I think differently depending on which language I am using. I'm a scientist and computer programmer, and I think Brady has got a point when he mentions (natural) languages are important to better understand computer languages and abstract math.

Someone remind me to e-mail Grey about languages.

Air Crash Investigation is a great show. I'm actually writing a sci-fi novel exploring what a space-crash investigation would be like.

I love how the whole show is basically Grey as the left brain and Brady as the right.

the ending was perfect x)) love this podcast!

Really good, as always. I'm really curious as to what other things you would have on a "not to do" list, and that they deserve to be on a list for you remember not to do them, mind sharing? Also, well played at the end.

I agree on what you said,the problem with foreign language classes is that most of the time you won't encounter this language out of the class,which mean you will have less motivation to learn it and you will use it less so you won't be as good as you can be with it. I learned English in school but the only reason I know it well is because I spend alot of time on the internet and because I watch TV shows that are mostly from USA and UK,when I tried(more like forced) to learn arabic I didn't care at all about the language,I never used it so I had no motivation to learn it,it was just a waste of my time. I don't think I need an explenation to why we need to learn more computer programming in school.

I got my sense of cultural appreciation from a first-year anthropology course (Sociocultural anthropology), much more than I did spending all of middle school and grade 9 learning French.

Being from Germany, I think it's pretty great that a lot of country teach english. It's kinda the universal language and it's nice to be able to communicate with a lot of other people.

I've been taking four years of ASL and I love it! I'm having fun and it definitely is a useful and beautiful language. The winter holiday show and spring show that my class does with our adopt-a-class program is so much fun! I wouldn't say I'm fluent, but I suppose I'm alright. A language I really wish I knew was Greek. My mother never taught me when I was younger because she thought it'd be confusing. My grandfather was from Greece and my name is actually Greek, but I don't really know the language. I tried teaching myself using Duolingo, but it was a nightmare. I regret not learning more when I was younger

After seven episodes, I'm basically convinced that CGP Grey and I are running on the same mental operating system. 95% of the time I'm on his side. :D

Nothing has opened up the world for me like learning english as a native finnish speaker. I think english lessons have been a great use of the time we have in schools.

Language isn't just a mode of communication. It serves as a way to look at a different culture. There is so much more to language than simply translating A=B

Having been taught American Sign Language as a child, (sort of a pre-reading thing) I find myself signing "Thank you" so much. When Grey was saying that everyone should know the sign for Thank You, I agree tremendously.

I took French for four years. It was one of the best experiences of my high school career, and I learned so much. I could name any number of other subjects that were a total waste of my time (our Civics and Economics classes were a complete joke), but you wouldn't simply toss those subjects out because they weren't taught well. Regarding the sign language point about using your brain in different ways, you seem to overlook the languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. Languages like Mandarin and Arabic also force you to process language in new ways. There are expressions in many languages that don't translate easily. Could an electronic translator find a rough English equivalent for "schadenfreude"? Probably, but there's a reason we've adopted that word. There are languages that have more than two gender pronouns, and that thought made me stop and consider how my society thinks of gender. You can learn from the actual mechanics of a language, not just the "cultural exchange" part. The point about how learning foreign language affects salaries makes me super annoyed. Sure, it won't make you richer, but its the same way for art, music, drama, etc. These things help to fill out your life and make you a better human being. They make life better in ways that can't and shouldn't be measured with $$.

Yeah, I agree that 4-5 years of a language you'll probably not use is pointless. I took German for 4 years and can speak it basic level. Just enough so if I'm stranded in Germany I can ask someone for directions or get to a place where people speak English. This isn't helped that all of German public schools teach English from 2nd grade on (or something like that, not sure) I've found that if you ask a question in German, if they know you're from the UK or the US, they'll respond in English. :/ Best thing I got out of German class was the culture aspect - learning about the lifestyle and history. So if we cut out the actual language part, I wouldn't mind taking 2 years of German and then 2 years of coding.

Dat ending tho

Grey, have you ever heard of the Expeditionary Learning program? The highschool I just graduated from an EL charter school and I think you would be much happier about the curriculum there. It's not your perfect vision of education but one of the things I'm most appreciative of from attending it is their foreign exchange program. Each school year students have the option to go to one of the 2 or 3 foreign travel trips (Usually central america because we have a sister-school in El Salvador). Last year I and ten other kids went to German for three weeks and it was the single most enlightening experience of my life. In the past the school has also had trips to Cambodia, India, as well as several trips to Germany, El Salvador and neighboring countries. As far as language goes my school specifically did require 2 years of spanish (but that's because we're in Arizona and it is actually useful to have some knowledge of it).

probably my favourite discussion between you guys so far... hats off

One thing which I think actually learning at least the basics of a language has over utilising a translation software is the psychological effect it has on the person you're conversing with, and thus the general attitude they end up having of other cultures. If you can turn up at a hotel or restaurant in France, and be able to check in, or order a drink, or book a room in French, it indicates to them that you are someone who is both open to other cultures and makes an effort to learn about them, so they're far more likely to come away with a good impression of you, and more broadly people from your country. If you instead turn up and just use a computer programme it gives the impression that you're lazy and uninterested in the culture, and they're more likely to simply remember all the things they don't like. Considering the rising issues in the EU with bigotry towards other ethnicities it does us no favours to proceed with practices which spread this 'lazy and uninterested' attitude.

I can't say how happy it makes me to see a new HI on KZfaq, because I know a new episode will be coming out soon...

I suppose you don't really read KZfaq comments, but I'd just like to thank you for uploading the podcast to KZfaq as well (even with the delay). Having a single place to go for all content (KZfaq subscription box) makes me far, far more likely to follow something than if I have to hunt down their website for updates or subscribe to some newsletter.

6:35 "If I did write it, I'd have no incentive to do it well... I'm not the one who is going to get the D." - CGP Grey

I actually took beginning Spanish as an elective in middle school and then continued throughout high school with optional classes, so it wasn't until they ran out of Spanish and I went into beginning French that I encountered the nature of a mandatory language class and realized there is a pretty substantial argument for not making it mandatory. I'm hesitant to say it _shouldn't_ be mandatory, but I've seen the barrier of comprehension turn *so* many students away right off the bat. It's not necessarily a lack of enthusiasm, but many other students definitely aren't putting in any effort, and maybe that's understandable, but I'm not entirely sure. Granted, my class is apparently the less strong of the beginning French classes, but I can still see that probably about half of those students will not really retain anything about French. Brady has a very good point though dang...

I'm not a native English speaker but I totally agree with CGP Grey. Also, a universal common language can actually help to overcome cultural barriers. If it were up to me, I would teach English as the primary language in every country and the native language secondary. This way we can make English a truly global language, while preserving the native languages.

as an English teacher who studied linguistics through out most of my student career foreign languages do help students understand how language works however, a year in a linguistics 101 class would give the same outcome. A conversation I have with many of my colleges is on the topic of how little most of the student population know about grammar and how language is used in general. I don't think that this should be a new subject in schools but it should be covered at some point in a students education. It is incredible how often I refer back to this knowledge in everyday life.

"Sorry, language teachers. But actually I'm not sorry or regretful because my position is based on the optimization of money spent by schools and time spent by teachers and students to get through school and become a mature and productive member of society."

I am a foreign language teacher. I teach English abroad. The high school I attended only required two years of a foreign language, and that was only if you wanted to go to college. We still had room for 8 electives across four years. This seemed reasonable, especially after the arguments from this cast. My alma mater required two years of a foreign language as well, except for engineering students. For my job, I teach students who have been learning English for 10 years, but only writing and not speaking. (There's a lot I could say about why that's wrong.) By this time, the interested students are already successful or will continue study after they leave school, and the uninterested students have already been pushed through the system. In fact, some of them have poorer English than what Chinese I can get through Google Translate (and I know its Chinese translator is not as good as French or Spanish). When designing lessons, I often get caught up in the existential purpose of education. I'd like to hear more about what Grey and Brady think about that.

Here in the Netherlands we get the first 3 years 3 foreign languages: French, English and German. If you do gymnasium you get also Latin and ancient Greek. After those years you can get rid of all these languages, but you need to keep at least 2: English and an other one. Latin and Greek are really handy to get to understand your own language, because they have a lot structures that aren't possible in Dutch.

Imagine the calculator was just being invented and replace "Language" with "Basic Arithmetic" and "Universal Translators" with "Calculators."

Now that I've finally gotten around to watching this, I'm glad I did. I share Grey's viewpoint on literally everything so far. I love him.

Where I come from language isn't required, however the local colleges basically have a "did you take 2 years or more of language" checkmark when looking a college applications, or at least the local culture believes they do. And I have to say, I envy the people who get to learn foreign languages in most of Europe in comparison to America. For instance many of them by the time they go into college, lots have learned multiple languages. I don't have exact numbers, but they are really high compared to English speakers, why? 1. You basically have to learn another language in Europe if you want to work anywhere outside of an area comparable to a Western state. 2. English is basically the international language for everything so it's kinda important to know. 3. The way they teach is way better, they start at a younger age and expose them to the language. People should learn the language by speaking it, studies have shown learning by speaking is incredibly more efficient than treating language learning like any other subject (not that it is too successful with those other languages either). I agree 5 years on language without achieving any success is not a good strategy, but perhaps instead of cutting out language we should rethink how we do language.

If this hypothetical where true, and Grey ran a school, please tell me where it is so I can move there.

I didn't make the connection at first but I thought to myself. That there is no way that this cave man robot picture is from that one spongebob episode I saw a long time ago and... holy crap it is!

i ABSOLUTELY AGREE WITH GREY ABOUT ADDiNG MORE PROGRAMMING!!! SCHOOLS GET ON THIS NOW!!! Plus we need to agree on a universal language, different languages are just holding us back as a race. i'm fine with learning language but as long as i get to pick from any language, however in my school they gave me the option between 2 and then gave me the one i didn't pick. They need to give a wider selection of languages and actually give people the language they pick because this happened to most of my friends. if i could pick any language i would pick German and my school gave me the option of French or Japanese! Now i don't know a word of Japanese [ the language i got forced upon me ] because i didn't want to learn it.

Language is a part of culture. You have to learn a foreign language to really know what I mean. Though it makes it hard to communicate, if a country loses its language, it loses a big part of its culture as well. In my school, a foreign language isn't a requirement, but many colleges require around 2 years in High School. I admit that if the student isn't willing to use the language past high school or college, I wouldn't waste the student's time. However, it is important that we learn at least a bit of another language, as we become more world minded as a result. I personally love learning Spanish and the Spanish culture, but to each his/her own. Computer programming is important as well.

My high school's requirement for learning language is only one year, but I think it's recommended that you do more.

I'm a little surprised you (Grey) didn't mention the critical thinking benefit of physics. Maybe it's because it's usually badly taught, but that's pretty much my number one goal in teaching physics. Yes, I need to include a decent amount of pure content for kids who will go on to AP (A level), but the way I use class-time is focused heavily around problem-solving skills, critiquing the questions, critical discussion etc.

A communications protocol? God Grey, you really do sound like a robot.

In Canada (or at least Ottawa) we half to learn French and English but that is because those are the two official languages. I agree that learning languages should not be mandatory unless it's an official language

I think foreign language needs to be available to students, but I think I agree that it should not be required. I grew up in the Canadian school system, so I *had* to take French for a number of years. I don't think a more efficient system exists to make a student absolutely HATE a language than making it required to move up to the next grade. By the end of that program, I didn't care that French was Canada's second language (I live on thr West Coast, no one speaks it here anyway), I never wanted to hear French ever again. The program basically accomplished the exact opposite of what it set out to do. And I know I'm not the only one who has felt this way.

In my school, (Australia) we have Spanish and Japanese. In year 8 (first year of high school) you have to do one, then after that, you can drop it whenever you like, but if you do drop it you can't pick it back up again, and it works. My Spanish is full of people who are actually interested, instead of disinterested drags like you get in say, mathematics or english as it is compulsory.

Best ending to a podcast

The frustration that people have with language is very likely caused by them never using it. Like, you'd be frustrated with biology if you don't care about properties of a pine tree. And the rest of the world is frustrated with all native english speakers who are used to a lot of people knowing english, so they would spend years in a country and not even try to pick up its language...

I hope Grey never gets to run a school...

My brother-in-law "yells" at his kids across a room silently with sign language. My niece took sign language as her elective language in high school. She also does face painting. She works children's birthday parties and gets paid to face paint and paid again to speak sign language.

When you guys got to the "Millennium Problems" I looked them up because I'd never heard of them before... I couldn't understand a single word in the problem's descriptions. Totally over-my-head math. XP

I agree with you on how putting students into the foreign environment is more beneficial than trying to teach the language in school. We were forced to learned English since the first grade and none of us could use it for anything other than to pass tests. I wouldn't be able to even understanding this podcast from learning English just in school. But later I became an exchange student in the US and was forced to use little English I know for everyday use. That's how foreign language really changed my life for me. I would have never learned a foreign language better than actually being in that environment.

If people want exposure to various cultures while learning a universal form of language there is always music. If there is ever a subject that should not be cut but often is it is that

On the what's more fundamental question from early on in the talk, I'd also like to add that I've always found it strange that we consider the intensity of electrical current more fundamental than the electrical charge given that current is essentially the amount of charge passing through a given point in a given amount of time. So why is it that the ampere is a fundamental unit of measurement while the coulomb is not? I realise that the choice of fundamental units is essentially arbitrary since there are a lot of ways in which these could be chosen but why is it that we chose it like this? In mechanics we consider distance and time to be fundamental and speed derivative but in electricity, essentially we've taken time and speed to be fundamental and "distance"(read charge) derivative. Brady, maybe you could pitch this question to one of the professors from Nottingham and post it on one of your physics channels.

thank you for speaking so highly of American Sign Language! I took it in college to count as my "foreign language" requirements! :D

When he was talking about pi (the number) I tough about pie (the food). The gave a whole new meaning to the conversation.

I love you guys so much. This video was amazing, probably my favorite thus far~!

The image of the robot and caveman that's linked in the doobly doo is from a Spongebob special in which Spongebob and Patrick are portrayed as prehistoric cavemen. The particular image was from an aside in which a live action character called "patchy the pirate" introduces the spongebob episode. It's from the early to mid 2000s.

I love both languages and science. sadly my elective for learning japanese in school didn't work out. because due to my dyslexia I couldn't handle learning the written word. and I have also learned since that the way languages are taught in school is just terrible and not how the human brain would naturally learn a language. which may be way it often doesn't stick.

I have to take foreign language at some time over the next 4 years for school. Originally they said you had to take a language (they didn't specify foreign). I remember saying something about how that should teach like Java or C++ and that could be your credit for a language, instead of like Spanish. I think it would be a good solution to do this, because not everyone is me, and some people want to learn French or something, but never will have the need or want to learn computer language. And then some people are me, and think learning another _language_ is a huge waste of time, but knowing how to code, is probably a good idea, seeing as I want to have a career related to that.

Here's the thing: there's only so much time students have at school. So we need to pick topics that are going to be the most useful to them, in particular the required classes. Given we live in an increasing technological world, that would mean STEM and STEM-like classes are most important. Foreign languages, art, music, literature, are secondary. If you like those, great, have them as electives, and when you get to college you can major in them.

I have chuckled from time to time while listening to these podcasts, but nothing has made me laugh out loud until the end of this podcast... oo yea I wanted to mention this...

best ending ever!

The ending really shouldn't have surprised me, yet here we are.

That picture. I looked at it. It's so hilarious😂😂

The picture you guys were talking about at 3:11 or so was from an episode of Spongebob where they discussed the history of comedy, if memory serves me right.

Here in sweden we don't need to learn 2 language. We have to learn 3

I agree with Grey. Language courses are AWESOME and having a full hour long conversation in your non-native language the first time (even if it consists of the most basic phrases) is invigorating! However, due to it's low usability and quick decay of the knowledge, it would be best offered as an elective.

It's really quite surreal to hear you talking about the missing plane from March so soon after MH17...

I can agree with what he is saying, in British secondary schools you're asked to learn French for approximately 5 years and from those 5 years very little people come out of those lessons saying they actually learnt something or are going to put it too use, however i find it quite ignorant to say that everyone should just speak English because that is the language i speak. But yeah i agree the way the language is taught needs to change

I know many people said it, but this is pretty regular English-speaking-person-opinion. I would recommend, you put travelling and getting to know other people on a more personal level into context with learning a new language. I am a German-speaking medical student in Switzerland and I often encounter French-speakers and I now wish, I've learned better French!