I suspect people living in Athens may be rather upset by the assertion they don't speak Greek! (Yes, I assume you meant ancient greek) High School teaches ton

I suspect people living in Athens may be rather upset by the assertion they don't speak Greek! (Yes, I assume you meant ancient greek) High School teaches tons of crap. I spent 5 years doing French, and while I remember "J'ai joue le foot" (which was a lie), that's about it, I could pick up more French in 3 months worth of weekly evening classes. Even the French I know doesn't help - I went to a kiosk at Gare du Nord, having just got off the train from Brussels. "Je Voudrai une cafe sil-vou-plait". "Three-fifty" comes the response. Bloody French. High School languages in the UK (and other English speaking contries) would be far better giving a smörgåsbord of the basics of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Mandarin, and Portugese. Being able to say "Hello, good to meet you", "Thank you", "Excuse me, where are the toilets", "Could I have the bill please", understand a few phrases (tickets please etc), and have a fighting chance at reading and ordering from a menu, etc, in most countries of the world would be very beneficial. 4 years, 2 languages per year. Perhaps more important than the language specifics are the customs, even things like composting train tickets, (Of course with translate apps, map apps, etc the menu/map problem is going away, but the customs and some language overview would go a long way - when train tickets neet composting, when tipping is required (USA), not required (most countries), and actually an insult (many far east places). Being able to recognize which toilet to go in - W or F - is helpful). Wider cultural education would be a massive benefit to Americans in general, who on the whole don't get the chance to travel that say Brits do.