On Mar 27, 1:05pm, Rich Graves wrote:
Undeniably true. I think Tim's point was more, "Who cares? Everyone *I* want to talk to speaks English."
Maybe; & who someone talks to & how they do it is of no particular interest to me. However, he said something else: that foreign language speakers were unavailable to most Americans. This is easily shown to be false. That many other people in our English-speaking community also believe it is interesting. Often, they can provide counterexamples themselves without too much trouble (& you may recall that Tim May did). This says something about this culture. What, I don't know, but it's some kind of cognitive dissonance. It occurs to me that members of certain large language groups in the US, who don't speak English, sometimes make the same statement -- "Everyone I want to talk to speaks X". I don't know why this disclaimer is necessary, but please note that I don't think for a moment that you all are "bad" if your beliefs are in accord with what Tim May wrote. Nor do I think you should go out & learn some random language.
One may quibble with the wisdom or morality of such a statement, but if the second statement is true in your case, then there is no reason you should have to learn another language. Most upper-income Americans have no
I'm not sure what the "second statement" is you're referring to. Anyway, there are a lot of reasons one might choose to study a foreign language, and many levels of fluency. There are many economic issues that could apply, & some non - economic arguments as well. There are very good reasons not to bother, as well.