A few days ago I was in a small office supplies store looking for a gift for my host sister’s birthday.  I explained to the clerk as best as I could what she liked and her role as an architecture college student to see what suggestions he could offer me.  “Of course, but can you do me a favor first?” he humbly asks as he slides an order form across the glass display cabinet counter to me.  “Can you help me translate this to English? The man is from Germany and can’t understand Spanish.”

Since it was only small words and notes as would be expected on an order form, I had no trouble translating it.  There was just one key word that I double checked in my precious electronic dictionary to be sure that I didn’t write the wrong thing.  He was very grateful and I felt very honored to help; it was one of those Good Samaritan moments.  Of course, the rest of the interaction went well and she just opened her gift a few hours ago–loved it.

When he was writing my receipt I saw him take off 1.5€ which I wrongly assumed was for translating and almost waved my student discount away, but this still highlights the value of knowing English.  We all are really lucky (it is luck because who gets to choose where they are born?) to know English, and better yet, it’s our first language so it was easy and “free” to learn.  No matter where any of us travels in the world, we will be able to communicate with the people or find someone who can without much difficulty.  If you can read, write, or speak English you’re set.

Part of it is due to our ignorance and refusal to learn more languages so the rest of the world has to adapt to us.  English is the language used for politics and business, it makes the world go and is the key to many people’s livelihood in non-English speaking countries. Many countries (including Spain) start teaching English at a very young age, a subject taught and considered with as much importance as Math or Reading in the US–unlike the  elective(read: excuse to have a party in light of the language’s cultural traditions) language classes I started taking in middle school.   Though Mandarin may be spoken by more people, good luck trying to use those skills to decipher a Latin-based text. I’m jealous of their national attempt to make their citizens (children, specifically) at least bilingual.