Most Americans are ignorant, one way or another they are going to look down on other countries and scoff at other people. In Europe when you travel its most courteous and expected that you know the native language (or at least enough to have basic communication skills). Here in America if you don’t speak English you get the old "this is America, speak English or get out" statement. This is slowly calming down from what it was about 10 years ago, Spanish and Korean are becoming alternative languages. In California immigrants who don’t speak English are turning to Korean instead of English as their second language.

So as an individual you have to ask yourself "am I really that almighty as to tell someone 'this is America, speak English or get out?" I think we could all be a little less stuck up and if you don’t already know at least one foreign language; pick one and learn it. In Germany kids are required to learn other languages, in Japan kids learn Chinese as well as Japanese. The Japanese language is derived from Chinese symbols, the Japanese language has 4 alphabets: hiragana, katakana, kanji, and Romaji. All have the same sounds, just different ways of spelling the words. Confusing? Maybe to us, but look at Japan, they seem to be doing fine. English is one of the newer languages in the world and most foreign people who learn it will tell you its stupid (how we put together phrases and sentences).

All in all I don’t think it would kill us to learn a second language and maybe use it once in a while. If we work with people as a living (over the phone, email, snail mail, whatever) you will eventually come across someone who knows limited English. Wouldn’t it be more efficient if you knew their language or someone who did know it? Foreign languages can be fun to learn too, so if you’re one of those ignorant folk please rethink your methods.

By the way we stole this country from American Indians and how many Americans now days know Sioux or Cherokee or Iroquois or Algonquin - the list goes on...