We in the english world are so privileged

[Scott Brandstetter]

We as Americans often feel bad because we only speak English and many overseas speak multiple languages. I never understood until I recently started traveling overseas for business. Get out a good old map and look at the geography in Europe and compare it to the USA. In Europe you could travel very little and run into all kinds of different languages. Here, in the US, you either go to Canada to try out a bit of French or go south to speak Spanish. We don't have the daily influence of languages to interact with like Europe. I have learned a bit of Spanish over the years but if you don't use it, you know, you lose it. Makes no sense, unless you travel monthly to try and learn, retain another language. I do have amazing respect though, for my business counterparts, who have multiple languages in the mind.

[Wade Lippman]

We as Americans often feel bad because we only speak English.

I would be shocked if 5% of Americans agreed with that.
As a practical matter, unless you spend an awful lot of time in a particular foreign country, there is little point to knowing a foreign language.

[Chris Padilla]

I don't understand East Coast English. They speak funny English.

[Lee Reep]

I don't understand East Coast English. They speak funny English.

East Coast English doesn't seem so hard to understand ... at least compared to trying to understand the guys on the reality show "Swamp People".

[Frank Drew]

I would be shocked if 5% of Americans agreed with that.
As a practical matter, unless you spend an awful lot of time in a particular foreign country, there is little point to knowing a foreign language.

Wade,

No disrespect intended, but you're aggressively pushing a very narrow-minded viewpoint. IMO, you need to get out more. Of all the things I learned in school, through college, the most useful, in a practical sense, have been languages.

[Wade Lippman]

Wade,

No disrespect intended, but you're aggressively pushing a very narrow-minded viewpoint. IMO, you need to get out more. Of all the things I learned in school, through college, the most useful, in a practical sense, have been languages.

Please elaborate, how have they been useful? Perhaps you need them for your occupation, but other than that...
I speak 3 languages but find them to be a complete waste.

[Lee Schierer]

Please elaborate, how have they been useful? Perhaps you need them for your occupation, but other than that...
I speak 3 languages but find them to be a complete waste.

I recently helped a very frantic woman who spoke only Spanish that was trying to get directions to get to a local hospital where a close relative had been taken as a result of an accident. Numerous people in front of me had tried to help, but then walked away in frustration because they could not understand her, I was in my own hometown. When I have traveled, I have also found my second language useful and have gotten better prices and better meals because of it.

[Mel Fulks]

I will take Wade and Frank at their word. It is possible for one to learn languages quickly and yet not find much practical for
them. Affinity is a factor. In a restaurant my wife loves to overhear a different language from a neighboring table....and it is the fastest way for me to get a headache.

[Wade Lippman]

I recently helped a very frantic woman who spoke only Spanish that was trying to get directions to get to a local hospital where a close relative had been taken as a result of an accident. Numerous people in front of me had tried to help, but then walked away in frustration because they could not understand her, I was in my own hometown. When I have traveled, I have also found my second language useful and have gotten better prices and better meals because of it.

And the other stuff you learned in school was less useful than that?!

I once came across a Korean woman in an oriental food store, trying to communicate with the Japanese clerk. They both spoke English, but couldn't understand each other, so I "translated."
These things happen even without speaking any foreign languages.

But yes, if I lived somewhere in the US that Spanish was widely spoke to the exclusion of English, I would learn Spanish. But it is extremely sad that such places exist.

[Frank Drew]

Mel,
What is it about hearing people speak another language that gives you a headache?

[Dave Anderson NH]

Re Mel's comment. A funny story. SWMBO and I were in Treasure Island FL about 3 years ago in November sitting having lunch under a beach umbrella on the deck at Sloppy Joe's. There was a couple a table away from us having a heated discussion in French. He was about 45 and she was about late 20s or 30. As they got up to leave and the guy walked out first with the woman following my wife gave the woman a big thumbs up. The woman sheepishly smiled back. I asked my wife what that was all about since I have absolutely Zero French excepting of course the few curse words that are occasionally used on me. The long and the short of it was that she was his mistress and complaining that he hadn't made good on his promises to take her to Spain on vacation nor had he left his wife as he had promised many times. It was time for him to put up or they were through.

[Mel Fulks]

Frank, I love foreign films so I guess the restaurant headaches are caused by the other diner's lack of sub titles.

[Frank Drew]

Heck, I had to switch on the subtitles for an English movie I was watching last week!

[Brian Ashton]

I would be shocked if 5% of Americans agreed with that.
As a practical matter, unless you spend an awful lot of time in a particular foreign country, there is little point to knowing a foreign language.

Not everything is about practical matters. The world is becoming extremely small, wouldn't you like to be able to converse with others that come from other parts of the world, or at least try. I've spent most of my life now in other places than where I was born. Without exception the memories I retain the most have to do with the people I have met. If you get around enough geography tends to blur and look the same everywhere, one of the more common statements either my wife or myself make when we end up somewhere is "it looks like (insert some place you've been before here) but people are all different and all have a different story… Some are absolutely gripping, others maybe not so, but still interesting because they all different… And to at least be able to attempt to converse with someone in their tongue, to me, always puts a smile on their face and gives me an ever lasting memory. One of the first encounters I had was with a couple from Fiji, Setay and Lysa, some 30 years ago. I don't have any recollection of their house or the town, Lautoka in Fiji, but I can remember implicitly sitting in their living room, wearing a sulu for the first time, and laughing and talking the night away. Or standing at the side of the house while Setay prepared the bbq and we talked, or at least we tried to… Or more recently sitting and trying to converse with Luza and Dannie, she being Hungarian and he Serbian/Hungarian in their apartment in Budapest last week. Hungarian is no easy feat but we all enjoyed the fun of it. The Budapest, more specifically the castle hill sky line, will fade in my memory but just hanging out with them will not, and maybe the friendship will continue...

And if that weren't enough, learning a language will, in your later years help to keep your mind sharp...

[Rod Sheridan]

I don't understand East Coast English. They speak funny English.

Chris, whenever I go to the USA I notice the same thing, you guys speak something similar to english.

Of course my wife being Engish claims that we colonials don't speak English either. :-)