In order to learn a language well we should also learn about the country as well as the cultures and lifestyles of the people who speak it To what extent do you agree or disagree

The topic of whether students should learn about the country when they are studying a new language is of concern for many people. Some suggest that the understanding of culture and lifestyles of the local people plays a vital role in language learning while others disagree. As for me, I strongly agree the former.

Those who encourage learners to get familiar with the native cultures hold the following reasons. Firstly, it will boost the study interests of the students. As some students find that simply memorising the vocabularies and grammatical structures is boring and tedious, the foreign cultures such as living habits and local music seems interest people more, which can easily satisfy the learning desires of them. When people feel that the cultural background of a country is appealing, they are willing to put more effort on the subject.

Secondly, the knowledge of lifestyles and speaking manners benefits the communication with the native speakers. In order to interpret the language more precisely, speakers should be able to use or understand, for example, the correct slangs and idioms in the sentences when delivering their ideas. This can only be achieved by investigation of the culture and mindset.

However, there are some others say that it is a waste of time to investigate irrelevant things. Numbers of them believe that they will never travel to other countries, so it is unnecessary to comprehend the local characteristics. For example, some students who enroll in a language course just want to be more employable as being multilingual is ideal when hunting a job. Thus, only the very basic linguistic skills are needed as they do not want to spend time on irrelevance in the class.

To sum up, I strongly recommend people to learn the cultural background and historical tradition because it can significantly improve the study efficiency.