"Ones"

One person.

A world of 5.5 billion.

If that one person can read this, they can speak to 443 million of those people. If that same person read Mandarin Chinese instead, the number of possible people he can converse with rises to a level of anywhere from 864 million to a billion. Billion has nine zeros. Million has 6. If this person speaks Mandarin, he can speak to the largest percentage of the world population. If this person spoke English (as the language with second most speakers) as well, this percentage is even higher. One in 5.5 billion is a lonely number. A person in your family is a “one”, just like a 10 year old boy in Russia is. That 5.5 billion is a considerable amount of “ones”.

Imagine if every “one” spoke only to himself, with a language only he could understand. Each “one” would have no way of communicating with the others, no way of sharing ideas, asking questions, or understanding his fellow “ones.” Eventually a single “one” attempts to engage in conversation with another one, speaking only his language and demanding that the other understand. The other “one” is annoyed and rather insulted, especially since the first “one” barged into the second “ones” home with this behavior.

English speakers (or perhaps just Americans) have a tendency to do this to other countries. ‘Since English is taught in all these other places’, they rationalize, ‘surely I don’t need to make an effort to speak the local tongue before I take my 6 month business trip/vacation/flee from the government before I get work done/visit/hide. ‘ So, tourists spend weeks in places like Japan speaking loudly, rudely, and in a painfully enunciated voice to all the shopkeepers and natives as though a slow, annoying foreign tongue is easier to understand than a standard speed one. As an English speaker, for example, you aren’t going to understand ‘kaimasen ka?’ no matter how slow it is uttered.

A language is an important part of culture, and thus, a part of the people. Attempts to understand a language, if even just little phrases to make conversing that much easier, are attempts to appreciate the speakers themselves. Even failed attempts are appreciated. It’s the thought that counts, right? Learning another language is opening oneself up to a group of millions of people, or even as few as a hundred or so, with whom, previously, conversations simply could not happen. Connecting with the world is connecting with people. Connecting with people is conversation.




Language learning should not just be a possible option, but something one desires to do. The world is far bigger than the lone person’s “one”, and forcing 5.5 billion others to accommodate “one” is not only selfish and rude, but rather inconsiderate. Americans often say “Learn the language before you come here!” Other countries say the same things. Isolation from the world hurts the “one” as much as it irritates the 5.5 billion.

There should be no one so arrogant so as to think that the world must cater to him. He should be attempting to be a citizen of the world. He is the “one” and the world is the 5.5 billion. Yes, 443 million others may be with him, but million only has six zeros, billion has nine. And he may find that he would enjoy what the other three zeros have to say.