Why don’t English speakers want to learn Spanish, but there is pressure on non-native speakers to learn English?

Answer 1

I once had a student while in New York, a banker from Chile, who found it interminable and oppressive that his company had assigned him to New York so that he had to learn English. He told me, "This is ridiculous. English is a dying language and Spanish will take its place. You know how I have proof? When Arnold Swarzenegger told the bad guy before he blew him away, he didn't say, 'This bullet is for you,' but instead, "Hasta la vista, baby.'"

There are lots of reasons why English speakers don't want to learn Spanish, or any other language for that matter, but maybe the main one is that they don't have to. English is rapidly attaining the status of Latin in the Roman empire, an international language that facilitates communication.