I am sorry, but intellectual laziness doesn't cut it...

Why not be as worked up about a lack of knowledge of the hard sciences too? How many of us are familiar with string theory? Who knows all the formulas of Newton, Einstein, Hawking?

Who has read the literature from every major religion in the world. Ever read the Koran, or do you just quote soundbites from it? Do you know the differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims?

And who can work out checksums for Roland sys-ex strings in their head? Or figure out a Yamaha manual? Or tell us why the Audya CAN'T play all the guitar chords?

(OK, disregard that last paragraph )

Look, there's a LOT to be said for knowledge for it's own sake, but be practical, folks... What's the point of spending a fortune nationally, to teach three or four languages to kids who will be unlikely to ever NEED to use them but a handful of times in their lives? Do you honestly think the majority of Chinese kids can speak English? They have enough trouble getting the educational resources to be able to speak all the different languages in their OWN country, let alone worry about us! Remember, the veneer of Westernization that China is showing us now doesn't represent the 1.3B (that's billions with a 'B' ) that speak over six very different languages internally...

So, in all fairness, there are probably more Chinese that DON'T speak English than there are Americans who can't speak Chinese... Maybe even more than Americans who can't write English properly (although this forum seems to indicate that IS close to 100% )

But, I've traveled a fair bit around Europe and the States... And I've run into people that couldn't speak English at all in BOTH places...

And, please! The idea that anyone visiting us (or even immigrating here) MUST speak English is as ridiculous as the thought that we MUST learn Italian, or French, or Dutch or Spanish, or Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, JUST so we can take a vacation there...

Learning a foreign language in a mono-culture should be an elective. We have little enough resources to teach our kids their OWN language. You only have to look around at the half illiterate postings from English speakers (from BOTH sides of the Pond and Down Under, too ) we get here to realize prioritizing speaking other languages is insane...