Well, with the current standards for high school, everyone learns a language. However, lots of people either do not feel confident to speak the language they learned or they did not really have the enthusiam for learning that language.
In high school I wanted to learn German, however, my choices were only French, Spanish, and Japanese (beginning my 2nd year). Do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with those languges, I enjoyed learning French, however, I did not really have an opportunity to take a language I wanted to until my 3rd year in university. Maybe I am different compared to most Americans in that first, I was born not in the US, and I grew up speaking two languages, so I am enthusiastic about learning languages.
I am also suprised by some of the American replies claiming that languages are taught in year 9, and being expected to continue with them for only "several semesters", whilst also attempting a couple of other langauges on the side. It sounds more like crash courses on different languages, rather than implementing language(s) as a set subject like maths, english, etc.
Here in Australia, at least in Melbourne, both government and private schools have a good language programme. I attended a state primary school and from prep to grade 6, students learned a language, which was either Italian, Indonesian or Japanese. In college (high school for the Americans), year 7's were placed in forms based on the language they choose to undertake (German, French, Japanese) and you would continue unitl year 10 with that language and be placed in forms with students undertaking the same language. This way all the students in my form would have German as a subject, just as English, Physics, Chemistry were set subjects. We would do role plays, take exams (oral and written) and partake in excursions to do with German and Germany (eg. go to the cinema to watch a german film, or go to a German restraunt and order German food in German, not English). Those students that go to private school, mainly all boys' schools, most likely would also have had to learn latin as a set subject.
Australia schools are quite similar to New Zealand schools. I too from Year 1 in primaryschool were made to learn Maori (Native New Zealand).
As I was from Dannevirke/Haast (which is part Dutch Speaking) we were taughted Dutch. I love the language classes (well not for the learning part) but for the great trips we had to watch a movie in Dutch or visit a French bakery where the teacher would mark us as we ordered for bread and anyother goodies we wanted from the shop in French.
In Intermediate school (junior high) and college school (high school) we were expected to learn Maori, English (mandatory languages) and another language if we wanted too. (Learning two languages were enough for most so the third language was mostly not taken.)