Kaitlin Lange is a junior journalism and political science major and writes "Kaitlin's Langeuage" for the Daily News. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Kaitlin at kllange@bsu.edu.
"Do you know any Italian?"
I was asked this question probably 10 times during my Spring Break trip to Italy. And each time my only response was, "I know some words." By that, I meant I knew how to say "cat," "good morning," "thank you" and "hi." Eventually I also learned the word for "dog."
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A group of students from my church spent Spring Break meeting people and teaching English classes. This was the second year I went on the trip — and also the second year I couldn't hold a conversation in Italian.
When I saw the friends I met last year, they asked me if I had learned any more Italian. It made sense that I would have. I knew about this year's trip even before Christmas break. Yet, I never downloaded a language app or cracked open an Italian dictionary until I was sitting in a café in Italy looking up the words "squad goals."
Even though I made no attempt to learn their language, every Italian I met tried their best to understand me and speak English. When we went out to eat, restaurant owners gladly assigned us servers who spoke English.
I never felt unwelcome in Italy, even in cafés where no one knew English.
As I said goodbye to my Italian friends on my last day, I mentioned it was their turn to come see me in America.
As much as they love Americans, I can guarantee they wouldn't experience the same hospitality if they visited me. In America, we scoff at people who speak different languages. We criticize those who don't bother to learn English, even if they have a basic understanding of the language.
Servers would gripe while serving the same people who helped translate the Italian menus for me over break.
To Americans, if you don't speak English, you're wrong.
Part of our unwillingness to learn other languages probably stems from the little emphasis our formal education places on it. I took four years of a foreign language in high school, and I was only required to take three.
In college, my advance placement test got me out of my two required semesters of a language.
Outside of school, few of us try to learn more about languages. We perfectly embody the stereotypical American characteristics of laziness and entitlement when it comes to building this skill.
I always use the excuse that I'm terrible at learning languages, however I don't think I've ever really tried.
If we want to disprove some of the stereotypes about Americans, we need to start acknowledging English isn't the only language that matters.
If my Italian friends can translate strange words like "eggplant" and "raw ham" for me, I should be able to pick up a few more common phrases.
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