I, too, am sorry I don't know more languages. Where I live, more people don't speak English as their mother tongue than do. Fortunately, most still speak English.

When my kids were small, and we dealt with a storekeeper who "didn't talk very well," I would remind them that this person could speak English a lot better than they could speak Vietnamese, or Spanish.

My experience in a hospital in Italy one night, asking non-English speakers for things like pillows for my wife, put the "didn't talk very well" shoes on my feet, and it was a humbling experience. Thank God for our tour guide, who seemed to speak every European language as though born there.

I never treat a non-English speaker with condescension, or even to appear like I am.

I encouraged both my kids to take Spanish, but they aren't taking to it any better than I did in high school.