🚀 go-pugleaf

perhaps americans are not punished overtly for not knowing foreign 
languages, because people in touristy places often know english...

but there is so much more to know and do if you do know the language.

A friend and I went to Cancun for a weekend in January. I had enormous fun
bargaining with people, talking with people, listening to chitchat. People
had a look of surprise when an obviously non-Mexican started talking in
Spanish.  (hopefully it wasn't because I just said to the waiter "I would
like a bowl of motor oil and a small silver of fried alligator toes
please.") Some of them asked me where in South America I was from - I 
learned the language from many native speakers.

And how can you truely understand poetry in another language, in
translation? Spanish is a language for poetry and love... and so is
Russian. "Te amo querido mio..." it sounds so much richer in that
language... you can whisper through a kiss behind someone's ear and it
sounds more sensual for being foreign. 

Well, I admit to an over-fondness for language. It's my current vocation,
and an avocation too. I even like pig latin. But I draw the line at COBOL.

--L