How many languages must an avarage person know?

It would be interesting to know how many languages the average American knows. One of the things that I always found disturbing is that even if an American takes a foreign language class, the American will rarely make the attempt to practice using the language.

Think about it, how many people do you know take Spanish? Quite a few. How many actually try to speak the language? I am shocked when I am a manager or teacher, and I see a room of employees or students scared to speak a word of Spanish to a person that might be struggling. I understand that there are many ethical and political questions whenever speaking a foreign language. For goodness sake, we're the land of immigrants and we need to step up.

Yes, I am proud to say that I have made the attempt and have spoken both Norwegian and Spanish to native speakers. I have even spoken the few words of German, Russian, and Korean that I know as well. Please keep in mind, that the only languages I can truly speak are English, Spanish, and Norwegian.

Rather than concentrating on how many languages are learned, let's focus on actually applying our knowledge of the international community. One world, one people. We can communicate and come together.

you, American guys, waste your time learning another language... Everybody in the world speaks English, so why bother ?!... You'd better spend that time learning more about politics... The lack of information in that might get you killed one day, for Christ's sake...

maybe 2...but at least 1!

2 or maybe 3 ...

two i think