The Importance of English and Indonesian Language

He said that nobody speak English in Indonesia. This is bad for Indonesian people’s carrier, and Indonesia’s carrier itself as a country...

I have two young men from India as my students. They’re learning Indonesian language from me. I discussed with one of them (Mr. T) about languages in India. I’d always thought that English is their national language. But he said it’s Hindi. But they’re speaking both English and Hindi fluently. He told me that all schools and offices in India use English. And Hindi is okay to live side by side with English.

Well, it’s only one piece of information from one man. I dare not to say that it’s completely true. But now they’re learning Indonesian language fast. It shows that they’re not unfamiliar with acquiring foreign language. And that’s a positive thing.

Mr. T also gave me his opinions on Indonesian people English ability. He said that nobody speak English in Indonesia. This is bad for Indonesian people’s carrier, and Indonesia’s carrier itself as a country. If our people can’t speak English, it will be difficult for foreigners to communicate with us. In consequence, fewer foreigners interested to invest in our country. It was also told by my previous student from Korea. The inability of Indonesian people to speak English properly makes things more complicated when foreigners investing their money in Indonesia.

English is getting more and more vital in this global era. Fortunately, Indonesian schools have shown a significant improvement. Some of them are opening international classes. My sister will start her junior high in an international class. I doubt that there are enough English-speaking teachers for all of them. But this is a good sign. Our people are getting more critical about education so that schools are getting more careful in linear.

After all, Indonesian language should remain important. Rarely I find someone speak Indonesian well. Even some foreigners speak Indonesian better that most of Indonesian people themselves. Thus I shall remain you once again that language is one nation’s identity. Furthermore, a strong language indicates a strong nation (it is related to soft power, maybe we’ll talk about this later). Indonesian people have to be able to speak Indonesian as a part of Indonesia. They also have to be able to speak English as a part of the global village. So let’s go internationalize ourselves while bringing tremendous national identity as well ^^