A great way to learn conversational Spanish is through a good learning program you can download from the Internet in mp3 format. With all of your lessons in interactive- audio form, you can take them with you on your iPod or CD player. You control wher…

I completely recognize that the US is behind when it comes to languages. Fortunately, I minored in Japanese in college and know my way around Spanish from highschool…but that is not common in America

I love language and I agree that it’s a sad truth that most English speaking countries expect the rest of the world to speak (or at least understand) English as well

I grew up in an area full of immigrants from various different countries, as well as spent a good deal of time traveling in Europe. What I always thought was strange was that all of these foreigners always knew multiple languages, and were typically pretty good at music or art.

From what I know about Victorian culture in Europe, it was fairly common for middle class and up to learn many languages and be trained in some form of art.

I believe your third train of thought is just a throwback to Victorian society that never really stopped in some parts of Europe, where nearly everyone is fluent in at least two languages. Now the rest of the world just has to play catch up. =D