Hey, no generalizing here about us horrid Americans! I don't think ALL Americans are ignorant. I think there is a percentage of ignorant persons in ANY country, just like there are wonderfully intelligent, insightful, educated, culturally diverse people in every country. I could base my entire opinion of France and French people on my visit to Paris (which I found quite unpleasant), but thankfully, I later visited the rural areas of France and found wonderful, friendly people there. I also saw a lot of "stupid Americans" behaving very, well, American, like the guy shouting at the French bus driver in English, thinking that if he just raised the volume, the driver would suddenly speak a second language flawlessly. I have always admired the ability of a person to speak English as a second language, no matter how thick the accent or how many errors made. I know there are some Americans who berate people for this and treat them like they are stupid, and it's extremely rude and should not represent the American people as a whole.

As far as being required to speak English when you are an American citizen - no, I guess English isn't the "official" language of this country, since the country is made up of so many ethnicities, but it seems to be the most commonly used one. If it were me, and I moved to France (ack!), I would feel the need to learn the language, even just the basics, ASAP, since the majority of the people in that country speak French, and most of them ONLY French. (It's terrifying to me to be in a different country and not understand what is going on around you, which is why I won't travel to a country where I don't speak that language. I only went to France because my sister speaks French and could translate for me.) It's too much to expect that a nation will be comprised entirely of bilingual, trilingual, or multilingual citizens - there just aren't that many extremely bright people out there, nor excellent schools in every area of a nation. Soledad mentioned that her parents couldn't learn English because of their low level of education - which is probably why a lot of Americans can't learn Spanish/French/German/Japanese etc. to accomodate and communicate clearly with immigrants. It's not because we don't WANT to welcome them; we just didn't learn a second language. I didn't expect every French citizen I encountered to speak English, any more than visitors/immigrants to this country should expect us ALL to speak their native language.

And I am EXTREMELY glad that I have been able to share my love of pets with all of the wonderful people on Pet Talk who don't live in America, and I am glad they were bright enough to learn another language and communicate so well in it, since I'm too dumb to learn one!