Everyone Should Speak English
In an interconnected world, we need a common language
I recently found myself riding in a Shinkansen (known as a “bullet train” in the West) from one coast of Japan to the other, with a Norwegian woman of Kurdish descent as my travel companion. During our trip, we talked of many things, but she raised a complaint that initially struck me as odd.
She said with frustration that “more people in Japan should know how to speak English.” Coming from the United States, where English is the unofficial, default language, I would’ve certainly felt very entitled if I were making such a statement. After all, how am I to travel across the world to a country I’ve never been to and expect the locals to speak my language, instead of the other way around?
Yet, she was able to make this statement precisely because she learned English as a second language. By her telling, everyone should know their native language and then a universal or global language, and the only reasonable choice for such a language at this point in time is English.
As I sat with her conclusion, it began to grow on me. In this increasingly interconnected world, there is really no such thing as an unmixed culture at this point. Japan is on the opposite side of the spectrum in terms of cultural homogeneity when compared to a…
