Uhm, first of all, I’m a bit confused. You disagree with me on what point? You stressed in your comment that we should learn the languages of our neighboring Asian countries, to which I agree wholeheartedly. Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian the whole SE Asia. I clearly pointed this out on my previous comment.

To wit,

I just think we’ve been looking at the West for so long, we’ve neglected to learn from our East-Asian neighbors whom we share more closer similarities.

I also agree that making fun of someone who speaks their provincial dialect also occur in other countries, but it should not be an excuse to tolerate and do nothing about this negative culture of hating our own kind . It perpetuates divisiveness among us Pilipinos. This is the point of the story about Rizal’s boat trip I quoted in my article.

I believe you’ll agree with me that it is also Rizal who said that, “ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit pa sa hayop at malansang isda.”

That my good friend, is my point.

Mind you I have studied the Vietnamese language for over a year and can speak it fluently everyday, since my own wife is Vietnamese. Even among the Vietnamese, the different dialects and accents are made fun of. Mind you I speak Vietnamese with the heavy Northern accent which is the standard in teaching foreigners the Vietnamese language. Most Vietnamese I meet are from the south and they always laugh at my Hanoi accent. I learned it because my friends are Vietnamese, my wife is Viet and I will use it someday for cultural education and to teach it in the Philippines to fellow Filipinos, since Vietnam and the Phil. have strong economic and educational ties. And I’m proud to be one of the very few Pinoys to speak, read and write it fluently! Yet for Vietnams attractiveness for investors, they are clamoring for English, Korean, Mandarin and Chinese language learning as well. We have fallen behind them. At least they have their common sense intact.

Don’t forget about China with it’s dozens of dialects. Now, who wouldn’t get made fun of in Beijing or Shanghai when speaking their province’s dialect in public? It’s a natural occurance in every country.

The reason so many students use un-academic reasons why they want to study, example Korean is because they are first immersed in pop culture of that country. They have not been encouraged to study the language for business, education, and cultural relations sake. In the Philippines, pop culture is big business, be it the local teleserye or the Koreanovela. It’s up to the teachers who teach the foreign language to emphasize the economic and cultural importance of learning that language.

Jose Rizal is our role model and we can beat other nations in becoming the next investment and tourist hub in Asia with our multilingual abilities. Next time do your research.

It’s the same with the Japanese, they even have different writing systems, but they know which one to use according to the context or situation.

I just think we’ve been looking at the West for so long, we’ve neglected to learn from our East-Asian neighbors whom we share more closer similarities.

With so many local dialects, anyone would be hard pressed to learn them all. What to do?