I was born and raised in the States, so English is my primary language, even though I am tri-lingual. I speak Urdu at home most of the time, and English otherwise, so I guess this question doesn't really apply to me, however, most of my family (aunts/uncles/cousins) that live in Pakistan "know" English, so I may be able to answer from their perspective. Although their primary language is Urdu, they know English VERY well (with an accent of course) but they can understand everything we say and can talk as well as us too *when they want to.* I never really talk to my cousins in English (besides on Internet chat) but I did a couple of times when we went to visit just to tease them. I used very had words that I "thought" they wouldn't understand, but they responded surprisingly well and knew exactly what the hard words meant. I was amazed that they knew English that well when they never lived in an English speaking country.
Oh and in answer to the question if we think Americans in general are self-fish in that they feel everyone should know English whether they live here or there, I would say that the certain Americans that feel that way are, however, I don't know many of those kinds of people personally. Most of the people that I know are very much interested in other languages and they think its cool to know other languages. I don't think Californians in general really care, but people in other states, some of them are rude and self-fish. (Californians are my favorite Americans).I don't mean that people from other states are bad or anything, but from my experience, the ones that I've met (not all) consider themselves as superior to people of other races and countries.
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