Learn a language
Mandarin, German, or French. But maybe Spanish. Also, 7 other things worth your time.
A French guy I knew thought he was pretty funny. He told a joke that went like this:
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
And what do you call a person who speaks three languages?
Trilingual.
But what do you call someone who has only learned one language?
American!
Touché. It’s true; about 80% of Americans speak only one language, according to the US Census Bureau. Compare that to 44% of Europeans who only speak one language—a majority of Europeans (56%) are at least bilingual.
But some research suggests that maybe it’s time for future generations to think differently. We'll start with a study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research and Opinion in the United Kingdom:
They interviewed 2,000 British adults who had children under 18 years old, trying to determine how many of their children spoke languages other than English.
Then they surveyed 500 British business leaders, asking them to predict which foreign languages they thought kids should study in order to…
