I once told my daughter, in her early school years, that it seems Americans have forgotten about the importance of teaching and learning one main language…English. It’s certainly advantageous to learn a second language, whether it’s Spanish, Italian, French, Chinese, or any other language taught in America. But, that second language shouldn’t be learned at the expense of our primary language, English.That advice to my daughter not only helped her grades excel in English throughout the years that followed, but it also helped her respect the importance of all languages. When she added a second language to her curriculum, Italian, she received honors and even took the Regents test one grade ahead and achieved a 100% score, thus skipping a grade in Italian!
I point this out because there are so many poor examples I've personally read or witnessed from the last few generations. I see it in the context of ads, periodicals, resumes, website content, business letters, etc. How can such final products contain errors that have now become the norm rather than the exception? These mistakes can easily cause a loss of sales, business opportunities, and, in the case of resumes, job opportunities. Of course, if we don’t practice speaking English correctly, how are we supposed to write it correctly?
Even excellent writers ensure to get someone to proofread and look over their written work before submitting it to the public. It is important to realize the importance of English and emphasize it to the younger generations. It’s nice to have “ spell-check” and “grammar-check” these days but many times they fail.
It’s never too late to expand upon your own knowledge and improve both your speaking and writing skills – I do it every day. You can even borrow a book from the library – you know the place that people used to go to before the internet?
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