I must agree with what Krishna wrote about the provincialism of most
Americans with respect to languages.  Two stories:

STORY ONE: The time: ca. when Sputnik went up.  A scandal developed in our
diplomatic corps.  A number of our embassies were being caught unawares by
riots and trouble in the nations they were supposed to be observing.  It
seems that none of the Americans in these embassies could speak the local
language. To handle this problem they hired local speakers to translate the
local press.  Political opposition to the present regime was breaking out
with riots, demonstrations, and certain political factions were appearing out
of nowhere.  The embassy hadn't a clue as to what was happening and so failed
to warn Washington of impending trouble.  The explanation:  The local
translators, not wishing to upset or offend the Americans, had put a positive
spin on each translation and they also did not even bother to translate
important stories which would have provided the necessary clues about
impending crisis.  After that the State Department embarked on a major
program to train our diplomatic corps in the necessary languages.

STORY TWO:  When I was living in Eugene, Oregon a japanese business man
delivered a speech to our local Rotary Club (or Kwanis, I forget). He
delivered his speech in faultless English.  At the end of his talk he asked
for a show of hands. "If I were to invite you to come talk to my Rotary Club
back in [name of city], how many of you could come and deliver the talk in
Japanese?"  Pause. Embarrassment. Not a single hand went up.  "Now . . . do
you begin to understand why we Japanese are beating you in international
trade?"  I suspect that his audience did begin to understand.

--  Robert Lockard