I read the alchemist by paulo coelho a book that I would have never heard of if I didn't study portuguese.
I don't know if I'm generalising but Americans are usually not inclined to speak other languages bc they don't feel the need to travel outside of the US.
Ahh I see! Well everyone has their own perspective and reasons. Although I think that to know if something is useful or not we have to look at how it is used.
And about the American not being inclined to speak other languages could be one of the reasons as English is spoken in a lot of places.
I learned English by watching Anime when I was seven years old, without knowing what the subs even meant, I also played games in English even thought the language was totally new for me, I just somehow ended up learning it naturally as those games weren't available in my language same for Anime.
I also live in a place with different cultures, so that could be also one of the reasons. Although I'm sure that it actually depends on the person itself because I have friends who aren't good at all in English. So one of the reasons could also be because someone is interested in another culture, language, or whatever the reason may be.
But yea, if English is used in a lot of countries then if you know English you can communicate a lot more already. So maybe why Americans aren't inclined to learn a new language is because English is common. But I can be wrong as I'm just writing this from my perspective.