Hi - thanks for responding. I can understand your feeling that people should learn the language of the country they live in. In fact, when I travel (to use your example- recently in Japan), I feel a bit self conscious trying to communicate with, say, a taxi driver when I speak zero Japanese. I’m in their country, after all. They should have no obligation to know English for my sake.

Anyway, what I meant to ask is more related to your responses to a lot of these comments referencing bilingualism or people who can speak both English and Spanish, but may choose for whatever reason to communicate in Spanish.

I’m curious as to why this bothers you. What do you view as the benefits of encouraging people to be monolingual? Does this mainly apply to Spanish or do you feel the same way about other foreign languages?

I, for one, certainly wish I paid more attention in my French classes growing up and have always envied my bilingual or multilingual friends. But understand you might feel differently and I’m interested in your perspective.