Multilingualism is obligatory.

His rebuttals are great and there are some marvelous points made, some of which threaten the credibility of my argument. I like that. When I defined 'obligatory', I meant to utilize the definition 'required as a matter of obligation. ' Of course, I did not specify that and my opponent chose the opposite definition. I accept that, but I will continue arguing using the definition I meant. I would like to share my history with languages. My native language is German. I essentially learned English alongside German starting at a very young age. I was always proud of being a bilingual, but I realized it was not enough. I utilized resources to learn Dutch, Spanish, and French. I learned these languages rather easily. Because of my hard work, I am now a multilingual. I am also now "going crazy", if you will, due to me taking the time to learn a plethora of many other unique languages. So far, this has benefited my greatly. It will continue to do so. Rebuttals"Okay. But that doesn't mean being mulitilingual should be made obligatory. There are advantages and benefits in having a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables. Does that mean that the government should enforce a system in which they force feed fruits and vegetables to us and deny us fast food? It should be our choice. " This argument is valid, but I still do not agree. I very much support freedom of choice, but I truly believe that multilingualism is obligatory. It happens to be my opinion. "Yes, I "acknowldge" that knowing more language allows you to connect with more people and cultures. But what if you don't want to connect with more people and cultures? What if in your life, you never get to even see a foreigner? In Thailand, where I live, there are hill tribes up in the mountains. They speak one language, which is a dialect of Thai. They have never had contact with a language speaker and most likely will not. They have no need to be multilingual, and on the off chance that they meet a foreigner once in their life times, is it really worth all that hard time learning to speak another language so that you can haveone conversation with one person once in your life? Even if they have more contact with more foreigners, it is not worth the time to learn a new language. " I grant my opponent this argument. However, these are only one group of tribes, consisting of only a very, very small portion of the entire human race. I also believe in freedom of choice, but I believe that multilingualism is simply something that is obligatory. Even if you do not want to learn another language and even if you do not intend to travel the world, it will help you. It can come to your rescue in an emergency situation. "Yes, if a person travels to another country, it would be good for him to learn the language of the local people in the area he is going to. But it should not be obligatory. He can choose for himself whether he wants to learn the language or not. It's his own fault if he can't communicate. Furthermore, what if he's only in Germany for one day? Is a cup of coffee really worth the time to learn German? I looked it up and found an online forum on language, and the people there discussed how long it took for them to learn German. A person said he plans to take 3 - 5 years! Another person said he couldn't learn it even after 10 years! I'm sure the tuition fees for German lessons would significantly cost more than a cup of coffee. " I see. Actually, a cup of coffee is not worth learning German. I must agree with my opponent here. However, a cup of coffee is only one of seemingly infinite scenarios. "In your provided example, it does necessarily have to be German. If a man knew Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, and five other languages, he would still not have been able to converse with the man in the coffee shop. Therefore, knowing more languages does not necessarily "help you immensely". For example, the hill tribe people I mentioned before. Knowing a European language besides Thai would not help them because they won't have a chance to converse with any Europeans. Of course I am not discouraging them to learn another language. I think it is great! But if they don't want to, which they won't because they will be too busy farming and working, they shouldn't have to. "In certain specific cases - like the one regarding the hill tribe people - it should not be obligatory. I, however, personally believe that it is obligatory for middle class and upper class individuals in developed countries. I should have specified that earlier. I realize it is too late to do so know, so I would like to apologize for that. "Pro has committed a fallacy. He is assuming that just because a man is fluent in one language, his life was a failure. This is a baseless assertion. President Obama can only speak English, yet he is the president of the United States. My grandfather was monolingual, yet he became rich in China doing business, became an official, had four wives, escaped death by the communist party and took refuge to Thailand, came to Thailand with nothing, and worked his life rich again. Now he has around 10 children and 30 grandchildren, who are all successful, love him, and while we are spread around the world, we all come back to his grave every year. His life was certainly not a failure. Furthermore, I am certainly multilingual. As established above, I am fluent in 4 languages. Yet, due to my personal experience of my personal life, I can testify that my life was a failure. " This is absolutely great. I should have worded my argument differenty, in fact. Perhaps I should not have utilized the word "failure". In fact, I must concede to this rebuttal and I grant my opponent this argument. ConclusionI failed to specify a few things, which I fully acknowledge. My opponent has performed better than me so far, I believe, and I admit that. I sense that he is going to win. I have a feeling. However, I will continue to fight, defend my stance, and attack my opponent whenver I can. I look forward to my opponent's next entry.