WOK language - global views

1. I agree with the nature of the quote. When a human learns other languages, they learn more about the roots of their own language, particularly if they study an older language. For example, I take Latin. When I learned the definition of the Latin word "dico" (to say) I realized that several English words are derived from dico, such as "dictate" or "diction." Foreign languages also increase humanity's knowledge of how to communicate with one another. When I traveled to Costa Rica, if I was able to speak Spanish, I would have been able to communicate with the people much more easily, and we could have had many great conversations. Nevertheless, that did not happen, for I only know how to speak English. I will never know what would have happened in those conversations, and I will not know anything about this hypothetical person. The nature of this quote rings true for me.   

2.  Alex and Ray seem to crave a desire to gain pure knowledge. They feel that each language has its own specific identity and culture. Alex and Ray feel that if they learn to speak these languages, they will be more worldly people and they will know the personality's of the society who inhabits each language. They are also glad that they can use this knowledge of many languages to communicate with these people and build relationships with them. My friend Andrew is similar to these individuals because he hopes to become fluent in Spanish before he graduates high school so that he can communicate with Spanish speaking people.

3. I would say that I am more of a visual learner when it comes to languages. When I learned French during middle school, I always did better when I read the words and memorized them in my head. I learned best this way, and because I memorized the words visually, the reading part of the French tests were usually easy for me. However, once our class got to the listening part of the test, the French became harder to understand. The people on the tapes had all sorts of different accents, and as a result, I couldn't pair up the words I heard on the tape to the ones I had memorized on the paper. Taking this evidence into consideration, I think the best way for me to learn a language would be to memorize the words on paper and work out their pronunciation on my own. 

4. "One good thing about a uniformed language would be that everyone would be able to understand one another, and communication would be so much easier. However, I do not think a society's native language should be abandoned in the process."