First off: learning anything is not a waste of time. Second, the same could be said of any subject: most students only learn math because they're forced to, or

First off: learning anything is not a waste of time. Second, the same could be said of any subject: most students only learn math because they're forced to, or history because they're forced to, and they're not likely to retain that information after leaving high school unless they have a personal desire to do so. Does that mean we should stop putting kids in math classes, or history classes? We (the US) should probably focus on making language classes more worthwhile, and putting kids in them when they're younger, like the rest of the world.