Quite true. Just today I was having a conversation with two coworkers. One is an immigrant from the Philippines. Her English is already very good, but she wishes it was better and is trying to improve. The other coworker was born here and said she feels ashamed to be living in Los Angeles and not knowing how to speak Spanish. I kept my mouth shut, but I live in LA and I refuse to learn Spanish! Why should I have to learn a foreign language in order to get along in my own country?
I've done some foreign traveling in my day and I'm always surprised just how easy it is to find people who speak English.
However,I travel to Quebec on a semi-frequent basis and when there I try to speak French (studied 50+ years ago in school) more as a courtesy than anything else.
My attitude is...when I'm in a foreign country I'll try to speak their language,even it just means learning "please" and "thank you".But if you're *living* in the United States and you want to communicate with me it's gonna be in English or I have no interest in what you're saying.