One has to speak or use a language to live on this small globe, and the language can be anything from speech, to a written format, to some gesture, and to anything that may affect the eye, the ear, the body, the touch, or even the smell. However, many would like to use or speak more than one language, to live or not, for a waste of time and life. Is it absolutely necessary?

Let us suppose there are only two languages, L1 and L2, that one can speak and use, and this one is really a living person who wants to live on and on. Now we have only four options. Both languages can be improved, or one is improved, or neither needs to be improved, expressed by:

1. +L1+L2

2. +L1-L2

3. -L1+L2

4. -L1-L2

It is clear that 4 is almost not possible since one has to use or speak at least one language to live, to improve or not. 1 takes a lot of time and energy since one has to improve in two languages, not always a good choice. That leaves us with choice 2 or 3, with one language better than the other, a universal truth for most of the language users. One may choose to live in L1, one's mother tongue or first language one learns from mothers, or one may choose to live in L2, most of the time, a language one learns perhaps much later in life.

If we use two languages, Chinese and English, to exemplify all of the above, we may simply conclude that one needs mostly English if one lives in the USA or the UK, or any English speaking countries, but not in China. Therefore one needs to improve one's English, and mostly English only, instead of improving both, for extra time and energy likely wasted on the keeping up of more than one language.

Now, we have a very entropic conclusion. If one lives pretty well in one language, simply improve on that language, and waste no time improving others.

It is a life-and-waste problem, so please double-think, for oneself.

Erard, M. (2012). Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners (1st Free Press hardcover ed.). New York: Free Press