Quote Originally Posted by shootingstar View Post
***** I believe the true, top benefit of 2nd/foreign language is not fluency, but heightened awareness and hopefully, sensitivity by the learner of another culture and how the world can be perceived differently through the lens of another linguistic structure/words.
+1 on that. It's also such an eye-opening experience to be standing on one's own in a foreign country where nobody speaks your language. But an experience I try to avoid by learning the basics of other languages before travelling!!

Esperanto is meant to be quick to learn for speakers of most languages. I really think that the Engineers Without Borders idea that Kat described is great. It allows the foreign engineers and local people to be sort of on an equal standing, linguistically, and to work together without an interpreter (interpreters are costly and not always inaccurate or qualified). I am quite sure literacy is not an issue here, in most places anyway.

I should add that in Canada it is NOT mandatory to learn a second language in most provinces, and that even where it is the level of instruction is dismal in most places. Mostly, it's creating a sea of people who think they know a language... Which is not necessarily much better than not knowing any at all. [I had written a long rant on second-language teaching in Canada but I'll spare you all!!]