Mind you my perspective on foreign languages comes from my job, where speaking the correct foreign language, in my case Arabic, is somewhat like using a fire extinguisher, you don't need it every minute, but you very glad you have it if there is a fire.

Secondly, people who can learn one foreign language can usually learn another more easily, especially once they are adults. There is something to be said for the belief that learning a foreign language helps a person better understand theri native language, but that is more anecdotal as far as I know.

Lastly, kids are capable of learning more than one language more quickly and more easily than most adults, therefore it would make more sense to give children an exposure to foreign languages early in their educational life, it expands there ability to learn a foreign language later in life if the need arises. It will also help them if they need to hawk souvenirs to tourists ;)

Jay, I can only say that from my experience speaking the language of whoever it is you are dealing with increases your chances of success in attaining your goal in that dealing. Being stuck in a country somewhere trying to get your engine fixed by screaming loudly in English "Fan Belt!" is not going to get you where you need to go.

I'm not sure if I'm being dissed or not. People who need to speak foreign languages should learn them; those who don't, shouldn't.

If I go to France (ahem) and expect to stay for any length of time, it would be desirable for me to learn French. Even polite or necessary, depending on situation. In a few years we will have pretty cheap technologies that will do the translation for us. That seems much more efficient to me than spending weeks or months learning a foreign language, particularly if it will only be used intermittently.

It was a rumor when I was in high school that anyone in France trying to talk with the French in English would be ignored --- not even asked to speak in French --- and that the only way to catch a Frenchman's attention was to speak to him in broken French, which then warranted an arrogant and condescending response. My conventional wisdom at the time was that I'd have had looked for what I needed from someone else other than such a Frenchman, not learn French.

There are notable exceptions, such as the Japanese who generally treat business with the same mentality that I just exhibited in the first paragraph, but the response is to take courses as needed, but this is in the realm of private enterprise already, not public education.

Maybe we should resort to a WWII trick and teach Americans Navajo.

Sure, if your measure of "utility" is being able to cope as a tourist in a country where everybody speaks some form of English, you might be right.

I think that's a pretty weak measure, though.

If you want to understand anything about a country or a people, you'd better damn be sure you can speak their language.

I've been in many situations--professionally and personally--where the Engish I was getting back was not at all what was being said in the native language. Sometimes it was merely a matter of nuance; often is was something completely other.

My career--and my father's career--took me around the world. Consequently, I had to learn four languages up to a level of professional competence, if not native fluency. Being able to understand where someone is coming from--something you can only learn from understanding how his language molds his world view--is critical unless you're there just to enjoy the sights.

And even though I'm no longer in that line of business, there are still a half dozen languages I want to learn. Some are so that I can manage to be something other than a lump in another country. Some I want to learn so that I can read books written in those languages, books that are badly translated, or not translated at all.

My wife, who has lived--if not worked--around the world, spoke five languages before she even got to university... her parents sent her to Spanish grammar schools in Argentina, to French high schools in Paris. And even though she's "pure" American, Italian was her very first language.

Even my teenage son speaks very good French and is trying to decide whether to learn Spanish, Russian or Arabic in university. He doesn't plan on living in any of the countries where those are spoken, but he wants them because they open new doors of experience to him.

I think you set your standards pretty low, I'm sorry to say.

We saw them speaking Japanese to groups of Japanese tourists all the time.

We happened on another group from the same program we were in at Moscow at one point and they told us that the one that usually got blank stares from the beggars/vendors was Spanish.

I do think that if we're going to require kids to learn a foreign language we'd be better served to start teaching it in elementary school as opposed to middle and high school. But I agree with you that it's not a requirement so much to be able to get around in the world anymore.