Fluent Fools

"To study a language without learning its culture is a great way to make a fluent fool of yourself.”---Milton Bennett, cross-cultural researcher

Nowadays,it is so convenient to go abroad that it only takes couple hours to fly to another country.On the Contrary, it would take couple weeks to go to the same place in the past.
Considering of the competitive society,it is inevitable that people need to learn a second language in order to increase their own competitive advantage. For both reasons , whether you like it or not , you must know some other languages except your mother language,even just few words like "thank you" or" good morning".

It is never easy to be proficient at other languages.Let's take English for example.We spend a lot of time on vocabularies,grammar,and phrasal verbs.We know how to communicate with people in English,however,we still don't understand what people are talking about.There is no doubt that it always makes us feel disappointed and frustrated.The main reason for this is that we didn't touch the core of the language,culture. Language is based on the culture and keeps evolving. People create new words or give words new meanings which are related to the news or personal habits. We have no chance to learn this kind of slang or idioms in the formal way unless you experience the local culture by yourself.

By the technology,there is no problem to grab the information from other countries. We can learn the culture through the movies, music , news , and novels which all are the reflection of the society.The more we close to the culture,the more we'll learn.Learning language is a gradual procedure and we have be determined .As long as we keep learning in the correct way, we won't be "the fluent fools" .