Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
Actually, at the risk of appearing to be some kind of cultural boor, I
could honestly care less about speaking any language other than
English. I can speak rudimentary Laotian, for obvious reasons, and I
have a functional knowledge of German because in my early years I grew
up in a heavily German neighborhood where my Grandparents lived, but
I've forgotten more than I should have and would have a hard time
communicating complex concepts - like, where is the bathroom?


But you should keep in mind that we have an extraordinary
luxury that most people in the world... and most people in
history... never had: a large, prosperous, & stable land.
This affects Americans & American culture in many ways,
monolinguism is merely one of the obvious ones.

I look at it this way - if I were interested in living in, say France,
I would try and learn to speak French. If I moved to Mexico, I would
try and learn Central American Spanish. I am not going to do either,
so I ain't gonna.


I feel the same way, but OTOH we travel and it's nice to be
able to ask basic questions and at least appear able to
follow some of the answer. If nothing else, it makes the
native much less inclined to be revolting.


Can't make me. :)


True

By the same token, if you move to America, those immigrants should
learn English.

Agreed. I think we (the gov't of the USA) are being retarded
to "value diversity" or whatever by allowing people who
can't speak a word of English, and arent' willing to try, to
GET A DRIVER'S LICENSE... of all stupid-ass things!

When in the military, I learned to cuss out people in most
of the languages of the places we visited.. came in very
handy, and I can still make Philippinas blush by whispering
to them in Togalog.

DSK