Learning a Second Language

Abstract For some reason, many people seem to find the very notion of bilingualism threatening. Yet bilingualism (or more commonly multilingualism) is the norm for most nation-states. There are fewer than two hundred nation-states and perhaps six thousand languages. Only about ten of the nation-states can be said to be predominantly monolingual (for example, Portugal, Iceland, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Bangladesh, and the Dominican Republic). Even in countries where the overwhelming majority speak one language, as in the United States and Britain, there may be substantial numbers of people who speak other languages. In 1976 the number of people in the United States from a non-English language background was determined to be 28 million, and it is estimated that…