> John Day wrote: > How often do you see two non-English speakers conversing > in English because it is the only common denominator? All the time, and that is especially true in France; the only way to do business across Europe is English; no one speaks all of French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Greek and yes English. The de-facto situation is that almost everyone who steps outside their little part of the world speaks their native language and English. But too many French are entrenched in an anti-American culture that refuses to learn English. > It looks like we are stuck with it. We are, and there is no point whining about it without actually doing something about it. > Jorge Amodio wrote: > [..] but there is a good reason why and that when I talk with people > from developing countries like mine (Argentina) they don't are able > yet to understand that blaming the "north" is not the solution And in this case it's even more misguided because France is not a developing country. Michel.