How many languages should a well-educated man speak?

LOL,Yes!, Lenin is right!

This whole question is a bit subjective. It's problematic in that the term "well-educated" isn't easy (or perhaps even possible) to define.

In trying to define this one gets into an argument that will easily end up like one of Socrates' discussions, where Socrates asks some people what piety is (Euthyphro) and slowly picks apart each of their arguments until in the end, like all Socratic dialects, everyone walks away throwing their hands up in the air realizing that they haven't truly defined anything.

If you're from the US, and you happen to be fluent in, say, two languages (one of them almost certainly being English), you still know far more languages than the vast majority of the population here, considering that most here are monolingual English speakers, or if they know any of any language besides it, are not fluent in such, unless they're not natively from the US.

An well-educated (wo)man needn't know more than one language and if (s)he knows two or more, English needn't be one of them.

That said knowing foreign languages is certainly good for your education.

I agree with greg. I think Jack, in his opening statement, may have been including "practical knowledge" as part of the definition of "education."

Most Europeans speak 2-3 languages at least...

I had to get back to work for a minute so I posted the above without reading it over. What I meant was that knowing English could be considered useful, practical knowledge, since it has become a lingua franca, but I wouldn't consider it to be necessarily a part of a good educucation

Jack,

Re: How many languages should a well-educated man speak?

With all due respect, I think that this is the wrong way to go about looking at it. Instead, I like the Czech proverb which says that "a man who knows three languages is three times a human being."

Linguist,

I somewhat agree with what you say. There are many bright people who have the potential to become professionals or college graduates but never had the opportunity to go to college because of poverty or near-poverty. This was particularly true of many Americans who grew up during the Depression.
Actually, most white collar workers are in the trade professions too and have less education than is commonly believed.

<<If you're from the US, and you happen to be fluent in, say, two languages (one of them almost certainly being English), you still know far more languages than the vast majority of the population here, considering that most here are monolingual English speakers, or if they know any of any language besides it, are not fluent in such, unless they're not natively from the US.>>

That's often true, but not always. I guess compared to Europe where countries are smaller and people come into contact with more lanaguages it's simply a practical matter that people learn at least 2-3 languages, whereas in the US it's less common, but certainly not unheard of. Here in California the vast majority of people study or have studied Spanish while they were in school so there are a lot of people out there who are not native speakers but are quite competent in it, not to mention the many who are functional enough to communicate at more basic levels.

At least here, there are also a lot of people who are actually natively bilingual in English and some other language due to the factor of large-scale Pacific-Rim and Latin American immigration to California within the past couple of decades--the American-born kids of those immigrants usually grow up speaking the native language of their parents as well as English (altho their English is usually dominant by the time they're adolescents). I've mentioned before that about half my university happens to be Asian-American, the majority of which were the first generation to be born here in America (or that moved here when as kids and also picked up English natively--my friend Jonas CSG who posts here is an example of that, altho he was schooled in English in Hong Kong before coming here as kid so he'd already been fluent before coming to the US). I have a lot of friends who are fluent in languages like Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Tagalog or Vietnamese even if they were never officially schooled in it because they grew up speaking it with their parents and family.

There are plenty of other "heritage" speakers (as the term is now) of other languages here, as well, besides Asian languages. Spanish is another obvious one, but there's almost anything you can think of.

In terms of the oddly-posed original question, how many languages you "should" speak is highly circumstantial. However, at least for me I've honestly just learned languages mostly for fun, and never felt like I "should" learn them. Of course I've definitely participated in the benefits entailed by being multilingual so I recognize that my interest also has great potential in practical terms, as well.

"what does it mean "a well educated man"? is there any standard? a man can clean toilets but he can also read Shakespeare and know long poems by heart....i know some people without high education who are more intelligent then "white collars" and they could achieve quite a lot. "

I don't agree with you at all, Linguist.

Reading Shakespeare doesn't make one educated. Being educated implies more than than. It's something way much complex than being able to read and understand Shakespeare.
If one is intelligent, than he/she is able to achive alot in life, otherwise that person's life and intelligentce is worthless. I call one intelligent, someone who is able to use that intelligence.
White collars are not necessary intelligent, because some of them achived ,for exemple, a good job title, just by being with the employer for long time, not necessary bacause of hi-intelligence.
Of course there are people who got a position with a co because of their professionalism and or intelligence.

Kirk, you must remember, though, that California is not the whole of the US, and also that probably more people there are bilingual or trilingual than in much of the rest of the US.

In Toronto, around fifty per cent of us were born outside of Canada, and even more are bilingual. In fact, bilingualism is truly the dominant model here.

I am also one of those who tend to believe that an education is not really an education if one is only able to speak his or her first language. However, I'm multilingual, a linguist and a language teacher, so you could hardly call me objective and detached when it comes to this.

I think English is a very important language to know. Billions of people are trying to learn it now.

Kirk : I really appreciate the way you write. Reading your prose is always enjoyable and instructive.

English is important but is not the only language try to speak it only in countries such as France, Mexico, Brazil, or Italy for example and you will get frustraded. Some English native speakers thinks that if my langueage is the most spoken worldwide then: why should I learn another one? So I saw many US people who were really mad because when they went to countries such as France or Mexico they couldnt communicate with others because the english wasnt used there, and they demanded that people of there must speak "the language of the world".

English is important yes, but is not the only option.