Reply #6: In small countries over here, TV and films are always in the original

[DFW]

It's no accident that in places that stress learning other languages, like the Netherlands and Sweden,
that with TV and cinema always showing films in the original, even the most besotted drunk on the
street speaks better English than many American sixth graders.

Bigger countries, like Germany, France and Spain dub foreign programs into their own languages, and it
is again no surprise that people in these countries are not anywhere nearly as universally fluent in
at least one other language.

We raised our kids from birth to be used to hearing my native English and my wife's native German from
each of us respectively, and we were rewarded with two fully bi-lingual children now. They always favor
German, as they grew up in Germany and they were nursed by their mother, but they can go weeks without
hearing a word of German and not be fazed by it at all.

My nephews in the States, whose mother in Japanese, were not raised bilingually and now remind their mother
constantly what a mistake she made by not always speaking Japanese to them from birth. Bilingualism is
an precious, wonderful gift, and it's a shame for some to put it down just because of their own language
deficiency. Hiding behind the fact that English is our official language is a ridiculous cop out. No one
is disputing that. But the gift of fluency in another language is such an open door to people, culture,
music, literature, and just new friends (not to mention expanded job opportunities!), to put it down just
because it's not Dick and Jane seems like a very limited way to look at things.