Not everyone wants to communicate in another language or learn about other cultures. It is understandable that many people are happier just using their own language and resist learning a new one. Ironically, however, many of the people who are trying to learn a second language are also actively resisting it.
Meeting a different language and culture can be stressful. It is certainly true that expressing thoughts and feelings in a new language is an intimate activity. Your language reflects your attitudes and personality, and therefore you feel most comfortable in your native language. It is also possible for people to resist a new language as a form of defense of their own language and identity. Some people feel inadequate and exposed when speaking in a second language. Some learners actually resent having to speak a new language, while others just find it tiring. People all too often compare the new language to their own, rather than just imitating it and learning it.
These reactions are similar to how people may behave when they travel abroad. Whereas eager travelers simply immerse themselves in their destination and enjoy themselves, others are looking for reasons to say that "after all, things are better at home. "Either it is the food, or the cleanliness, or the weather, that confirms to them that they were better off at home. Of course we are always happy to come home from a trip, but why think of it while traveling? Speaking your native language is easier and more relaxing, but why focus on that while trying to communicate in a new language?
It is disappointing to see that many learners do not take advantage of the environments that surround them. It is common for parents to send their children to foreign countries to learn languages. When I studied Political Science at the University of Grenoble, France in the early 1960s, there were many students from England and the United States who were there to study the French language. They were mostly interested in having a good time with other English speaking friends. They did not take full advantage of the opportunity of living in France. They were not sufficiently motivated to get to know French people. As a result, they did not improve their French as much as they could have.
In a similar vein, I once spoke with a Japanese professor of chemistry at a prestigious British university. He told me that unfortunately many of the language students from Japan at his university stay within their own language group. It was a common joke that students from Tokyo returned to Japan with an Osaka accent but little improvement in their English.
When we first learn to swim, the water can look uninviting. Until we commit ourselves, communicating in a foreign language can be the same. I remember hearing a recent immigrant to Canada tell me that after leaving his homeland, he first lived in Europe. He was invited to go out drinking with his co-workers but felt that he did not understand their sense of humor, so he stopped going out with them. He related this incident to me, quite out of context, presumably to convince me or himself that the cultural gap between him and "the foreigners" was simply too wide to bridge. Yet he wanted to improve his English. He did not realize that he had to learn to find common ground with "the foreigners" if he hoped to speak other languages fluently. He did not have the attitude of a linguist.
The personal, professional and cultural opportunities that come from being able to communicate in other languages are obvious. I derive enormous pleasure from speaking other languages, whether I am at home or traveling. What's more, I have built up my business through my ability to speak languages. Now, even when I am at home in Vancouver, it is not unusual for me to speak French on the telephone in the morning with a customer in Le Havre, or Swedish or German with suppliers, then chat with waiters over dim sum lunch in Cantonese, and then be on the telephone to Beijing or Nagoya in the evening speaking Mandarin and Japanese. I ran companies in Japan for six years. I have had occasion to give speeches to forest industry gatherings in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America in Japanese, Spanish, Italian, French, and Swedish, as well as English.
