Second Language In Canada

Language can often cause a debate amongst the general population. There are the people that advocate for being able to speak, learn and interact using their own language that may not be the most widely used language in the country they live in. There are also those that have lived in a certain country for an extended period of time and have spoken only the “first” language of the country. So, many of them believe it should be the only one used. In Canada, the population speaks a wide variety of languages, with a particular emphasis on English and French as the official languages. This has created many debates, such as the education of French Immersion students in Canadian schools over the years, and is still a controversial topic of discussion

My family moved to Canada from United States and before that from Sweden about five generations back. I believe they were my grandmothers grandparents, so they were people I obviously never met, and my family quickly became very adapted to Canadian society, including the use of English. So, my family has almost no experience with languages other than English. We speak English and that is the only language we have ever used to communicate. As an individual, even after taking French as a Second Language for 8 years, I still have little knowledge of the language and would not be able to communicate effectively with someone fluent in French. But, in Canadian society, English is all you need to know. You need to be able to speak English to communicate effectively and those who move here learn quickly. English is a main factor in connecting the people of Canadian society, but because it is the only language used, it also creates a barrier for those who are not born and raised speaking

I’ve never needed to adapt to speaking someone else's language, people tend to adapt to the language I speak, because it is the primary language used in the places I live or travel. I’ve found this situation happens quite often in working or interacting within the service industry. I will be the first one to admit, I am terrible at understanding people when they have accents, no matter what accent it is. In my experience, this tends to make me try to end or prevent the conversation as soon as possible, because I feel awful for not being able to understand them or having to ask them to repeat themselves. So, it prevents a connection from being made. I am much more likely to have an in-depth, ongoing conversation with someone if we can easily have a nicely-flowing conversation. The effects from the lack of a bond being made can be anything from in the case of a job, a sale being less successful, to the prevention of a friendship being made. Or even, in the case of an education, someone may not understand the material because of the accent of a professor or another student. Such as in “Learning the Language” the terms used by medical professionals create confusion for those not yet fully integrated into the group. Such as when Klass says that she started working in the hospital in a “state of primeval innocence” and spent the beginning of her training learning the “endless jargon and