What do you call a person who can only speak one language?

Sentiments echoed, Fajar, by another American.

That's a good point.. I think slowly schools might be starting to put more emphasis on foreign langauge. My younger sister had to take spanish classes in middle school at a public school in Ohio.. My brother went to the same school five years earlier and the requirement didn't exist when he was there. I'm not sure if there is a broader trend there, though.

You're right; people (everywhere, I think, not just in the US) don't take it upon themselves to learn something until they absolutely have to. And in the US most people don't ever have to.. unless they're 30 and there's some job they want that requires Spanish... enter Rosetta Stone.

What are your cousin's second and third languages? I'd be surprised if she learned languages that don't have a practical use... did she not learn English?

I didn't say that "America's size releives it of the need to learn another language." I am not trying to justify it. I think learning another language -- and traveling to other countries -- is worthwhile and enriching. I am tri-lingual myself. I was simply making a reasoned observation. A second language isn't as high a priority for most Americans as it is for Europeans. I believe this is not because Americans are inherently ignorant. I think it's reasonable to think that there are circumstances that cause certain behavior. You don't typically go to France or Germany or Denmark for the weekend if you live in the US. For many Americans, they would have to travel more than 1,000 miles to get to a place that uses another language. As an American, your exposure to other languages is a lot more limited, and yes it's in part because of the size of the country.

You might say China is just as big, and most people there know a second language. Yes, but they learn English because is a neccessity! A neccessity if they want to work at a global company, or go to a university in another country.

I think the schooling system, and attitudes toward language, etc. are a result of the conditions I described.

Like others and I have said -- it's not just Americans -- the tendency not to learn a second language is prevelant in most native English speaking nations.

I really think Americans (the more intellectual ones anyway) are just bitter because they haven't had the same opportunities to learn languages as their European counterparts. I think Americans -- the ones who have a superiority complex over other Americans -- are more critical of themselves than other people are.

I'm sorry I made a grammatical error, English is not my first language. But obviously I am fluent, and am prone - like most people - to making some minor mistakes when typing things on the internet.

But, if you want to split hairs:

This is not grammatically correct either:
"FYI, many in Europe, including my German cousin, are educated [in] a second and third language from [the] first grade for a reason that has nothing to do with necessity.

Nor is this:
It's ["It's" is a contraction for "it is" not "it has"]simply been the educational philosophy there for a long, long time.

And to really split hairs, this sentence is a bit wordy:
Understanding another language is the best means by which to understand another culture.

I'd also be furious if foreigners kept talking trash about my country but myself (and speaking just for myself) I don't like when people say that english is a world-wide or a universal language as you said. I rather think it's more appropriate to call it the globalization-language as it is only due to the fact that the USA developed the internet a great deal and exported their culture that english has become popular.

I'm not surprised that most people (especially middle aged people and older) in Europa don't speak english (it just isn't useful because they learned their national languages and if they wanted to go abroad they would 'scratch' the german, italian, french, spanish, portuguese...). I dont think it's fair to call us backwards either as I know that a great deal of spanish can understand the portuguese (and vice-versa) as well maybe some french (in catalonia) and the german with flamenco (maybe flemish in english) and dutch and so on.

What I mean is that people may not be fluent but they can understand the neighbouring languages. Unfortunately, the culture exported by your country only shows that the normal US-citizen (average John Doe) is unable to understand the spanish (spoken in Mexico) or french (from Canada). I don't think I'll ever go the US (and most europeans will never go either) but the image that your country tries to give of itself is one where people dont care about the rest of the world and dont care to speak other languages. And we're not there ourselves and we believe you (television and movies) when you say: we're dumb but we have money.

That's sad and unfortunately I think people there will continue to focus on that side of the population when it comes to media :s


youngsters dont make mistakes, they try new things n besides, brains r overrated!

So you're saying that people in Spain and Italy are "so" backward because they usually don't speak English.

There are so many wrong things with this statement that I'm not even sure where to start.
First why English? Oh yeah right, because it's a universal language. So universal indeed that they don't speak it and don't even feel the need to. Rest assured that this remains true for Eastern Europe, Asia (including Japan), Latin America and half of Africa. It seems to me that for a universal language it really doesn't have that much coverage. I think you're confusing the fact that english is dominantly used as an international business language with the fact that it's a universal language, which it's obviously not. Spanish in this regard is far more universal that English, yet you don't hear Spanish people saying gee you guys are so retarded because you don't even speak Spanish. Besides in this specific case the needs of Spaniards and italians might much be better served by knowing French given geographic and economic (not to say cultural) closeness. German is also a good choice as lingua franca for the Italians if they want to do business in Eastern Europe (in fact a lot of Italians living in the north do speak german due to their proximity with switzerland and Austria).
Second you're more likely to find a Spaniard or an Italian speaking a foreign language than a US citizen hence if they're backward then what does that make you?

"English is a universal language and I find it more ignorant when people don't speak it."
I understand that you think English is a universal language and therefore you (as a people) don't really need to learn another one and that others should learn yours. However your trips should have taught you otherwise. A language that nobody speaks is not universal and the fact that people don't speak it is a clear indication that they don't really need to (I'm starting to repeat myself so it's time to stop). As a piece of advice I'd suggest you adjust your ideas with the reality you experience instead of trying to do the other way around.

You may be sick of foreigners talking crap about Americans (fair enough, at least when it's not deserved), but you don't seem to have problems talking craps about foreigners. I'm not sure what to make of that.

"Oh, please. I was shocked when I traveled in Spain and Italy - hardly anyone speaks a lick of English." - exactly, i don't know where did the author of the original message take his claim from. And trilingual Guatemala - i would like to see that, since i know a lot of people, who claim fluency in foreign language, yet it's easy to prove them wrong - there's a lot of topics they can't talk about because of a vocabulary shortage. Earning A on your highschool language course (covering what - 3 hours weekly?) doesn't make you fluent.

Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.