Thank you for a very interesting thread for me.
I was educated at Grammar school in England and studied German French Latin and , of course, English (Language and Literature).
Although I always wanted to communicate with other non-english (I actually hate the word 'foreigners'),my teachers were wonderful at their job and therefore encouraged my passion.This was 1943 to 1949 and most of my teachers were good at their chosen profession. I fear that is not always the case today.
It is therefore not always easy to study another language in school...my son, daughter,grandson and granddaughter have confirmed this.....
There is a certain laziness to learn another language when your first language is english wherever you are in the world simply because english is so widely used in business and commerce, songs,computers,aviation, and are these not the most important communicators we have!.
In my own case , I also have spent a lot of time studying russian,italian,spanish,arabic and even chinese , simply because I am an avid 'learner'of information. This has enriched my life enormously by reason of allowing me in to the makeup of our non-english friends .
I fear that english, however, will continue to be the number one language in the world where most needs are.
In my case, I have a keen interest in my fellows and by travelling around a few countries I have found that we are all basically the same human beings except that we use different languages.
Long live foreign languages and accents and
dialects!!!!


------------------
Eddie from Rotherham
Skype:eddiefromrotherham
www.yamahakeyboards.info

PSR9000