It's not a waste of time when your family speaks it or live there, or plan to live there.

I once had French and English burned in my head, when i moved to the U.S. i never had to use French, and i frogot how to speak it , so my french is quite rubbish. My english is almost flawless, i just type too fast on keyboad, its better to learn anything while young.

The reality is, if you can speak English, you can travel anywhere. Language learning for a native English speaker should be about desire, not what language you think will be most useful. If you don't enjoy it, then you won't learn it.

I've tried learning Spanish, Polish, Korean, and French - and if I had more time I would continue with them, because I enjoyed all of them. I was made to learn Mãori, and not only do I remember anything from my lessons, but I have no desire to learn it, or speak it.

Thanks :)

That's a whole different thing of course.

Try travelling to Latin America or China and get well by with English, I can assure you that it's not that convenient but right on the contrary.

Though that really depends about an individual.

I've been to Latin America, and could have avoided speaking Spanish if I wished.

And I've known people who have lived in Korea and Japan - one guy lived in Korea for 5 years, and couldn't say more than hello, yes, no, please, thank you. I will assume much the same is possible in China.

Obviously if you go right into the rural areas, you will encounter language problems, but you could always find a translator.

where at if you dont mind? Having been to the Dominican republic, Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Honduras. i can say that at no point during any of my visits could a visitor do anything more than stay within 100 yards of a hotel without knowing a bit of spanish. Might be different hanging around the resort areas but those are not an accurate reflection of the countries visited anyway.

Chile and Argentina. Central city hotel in Buenos Aires, and homestay in Chile, with a bit of travelling. Obviously while there was not always someone to talk to in English, you could almost always find someone to talk to that someone, or communicate well enough with a handful of phrases and signs.

I guess we should learn sign language, then. :)

Sure, even a person who can't speak at all can "get by" almost anywhere in the world but it seems that you didn't see the word "well".