Why to people from some countries speak foreign languages better than people from other countries?
367282
Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?\nA: Bilingual.\n\nQ: What do you call someone who speak one language?\nA: American.\n\nIn many parts of the world, it's common to speak two or three languages.  Many places speak a European language as a second to their own, or a "lingua franca" for their region, such as Arabic (you can hear it from Morocco to Afghanistan) or Swahili (20+ African countries and 50+ million people).  \n\nThe Europeans, North Africans and Middle Easterners speak several languages because they are exposed to them regularly.  You'll find many Scandinavian and Baltic (Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian) athletes who compete at the world level speak English because they receive English TV transmissions.  (The Baltic states listened to Finnish transmissions illegally.  The Finns didn't mind, but Moscow did!)\n\nFortunately, most who do listen to English broadcasts listen to BBC, and NOT to Mouthpiece of America - oops, Voice - VOA.  Sad to say, it's the English speakers who are the biggest morons and don't speak more than our own tongue.  Not taking my French classes seriously in elementary and high school was the second biggest mistake of my life.  (Listening to my parents was #1.)\n\nAnd to see idiot reichwingers in the US who think Americans speaking Spanish is a problem, I can only shake my head.  South America is 500+ million in size, is a growing economic power, they speak Spanish (except for Brazil), and the US wants to ban Spanish in schools and government.  Incredible. 9_9
79401
French is easier to learn because it's less complex and more similar to other languages, and can also be more widely used in the world.
1012469
Each country (mostly the democracies) offers something that is better than what America does such as the Netherlands have more free speech, German deals with the health care the best, Switzerland deals with unemployment the best and on it goes but I do think the innocent til proved guilty idea of America is best. Most Americans just love their country especially when talking from someone from another country but most people love the country they love as long as they have rights and opportunities. That said you will rarely find an American that doesn't have something about their country they hate and I think its true for most people in other countries just don't expect them to admit it to a foreigner hehe! Also, not many Americans are interested in other countries because until recently we were not impacted by them as much as other countries seem to be impacted or knowledgeable of us.
18804
Because we are general stuck on the fact that we are right and nobody could be as great as us. Even in war we usually destort the culture of another country to make it seem worse then it is. But that is a general statement there are people who love to learn about other cultures (me and another on this page) but mostly it is because we arrogant.
745260
As different peoples developed different languages, the accents changed and diverged with the languages. So language is why we have different accents. Language determines our phonics, or the pronunciation of words, even when we speak other people's languages.
245327
LOL No. It's an every day occurrence where I live. The town I live in is extremely multi-cultural. The people are from very diverse cultural backgrounds, and there are people around here who speak a myriad of languages. Most of them speak at least a little English too, but when they are together in groups, they speak their native language, and why not?  They aren't talking to me, so why would I care what language they are speaking?
295608
Most people outside of America speaks more than 1 language. Personally, I speak, read, and write 4 different languages.
742947
It doesnt make a difference to me except it is always good to speak to people from different cultures and countries, it is interesting to learn about them and see how they react with certain speeches.
1029283
I like to tell people that because I know Spanish as well as English, my world is twice as big. That means I can talk to almost anyone I meet in the Southwest United States, where so many speak both Spanish and English, instead of being limited to just English. Now if only I knew French, I could go to Canada and expand my world by another big percentage. Same with Russian or German or Portuguese or Chinese.
766864
Because the European Council promotes multilingualism and cross-cultural dialogue. They have this policy, and spend tons of euros on this matter. There are many projects especially made for this aim. The aim of EU is to make every European know at least two languages.
136617
People use language in the way that they feel gives them the highest status.  However, the ways that people want to get status are different.  For example, in academic settings, the highest status people use academic langauge well, but in an inner-city setting, a person who used academic language would not be well-accepted.  As a result, there are many different language varieties to fit the different settings and cultures.\n\nPeople also use language to exclude each other from groups.  Everyone has had an experience where not knowing some jargon kept them from knowing what's going on.  What better way to exclude your neighbor than to speak a completely different language?\n\nNot that I agree with these reasons, but I think they are the reasons.
1053854
That question is as dangerous as asking "Why do we need other races? Isn't it just a waste of humanity?".\nEach language shows a different reality. Each of them expresses things in a different way. Why would I like to use English to say love words to my wife when English is so poor at that?\nNot everyone speaks English. Not even in your own country. It is not the language most of people in the world speaks. Maybe it is the one with more students. But.. then.. why would the rest of the world would like to give up their own culture to adopt English? that's just an absurd thing.\nFrom your question, I asume you speak ONLY English. Then you are missing a lot.\n(lol and.. by the way.. for foreigners [talking from the American or British or Australian, etc. point of view] English IS a foreign language)
116419
Compared to whom, Nathan?  Add a comparative statement in your question, because compared to most of the world, we're geniuses.  However, if you are referring to our educational test scores, I would agree that there are other nations that do better. That is the price we pay for freedom.  Some of our citizens have the choice not to have the same work-ethic/education-ethic as others in our country, and our scores go down.  Add that more immigrants come to our country from more nations than any other country, many of them not speaking a word of American or English and our scores go even further down.  In addition, our insistence on freedom of speech means that we are used to people speaking even before they think, because they aren't scared of people censoring them or acting like they are stupid due to a single statement.  We know we can ask a question and they'll make themselves clearer.  In some advanced countries if you say the wrong thing, you are labeled a fool and anything intelligent or valuable you might say is ignored from then on.  Americans are used to sifting through piles of garbage to get at the truth, and everyone gets multiple tries, so we just keep getting better.  Oh, one more thing:\n\nYou just insulted two continents: South America and North America, which includes the larger countries of U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, etc.  Do you want to rephrase your question?
985561
Uniter.  Sure there are differences in language, but there are difference in people as well.  The reason humans are able to acheive the incredible things that we do is because of our ability to communicate on a very specific level.  No other animal comes close to us in this regard.
642551
I love other languages.  All of them, really.  I like to hear them spoken in groups.  It flows so naturally, as though you should understand every word, but you don't.  I tried to speak German while living abroad, but I was with many americans and we'd only speak German when we were drunk and in class.  I was lucky - I could speak it more than most.
700219
why do you make that assumption?  In english speaking countries it is still important to be able to communicate.  I'm sure it's that way in other countries with their own languages, too.
805502
Yes there is possibly more English speaking then any other language, yet I doubt it would be spoken all over the world, because nationalities want to keep tradition and want to speak in their own language and not a strange forgien one.