Letter to the Editor:

I often hear people say something like "I took four years of (name a foreign language) in college, and now I can't say a blessed thing." I mumble a noncommittal response, but what I really want is to ask "And whose fault is that?" followed by "Consider all the wonderful people you'll never meet, the marvelous experiences you'll never have, the places you'll never visit, and the mountains of information that will never be yours because you choose to remain monolingual."