Some thoughts about languages

I live in a town near Barcelona, which, as most of you know, is in Spain. Why I'm telling you this? Because here we have our own language which is Catalan, but we also speak Spanish as it is the official language in Spain , in other regions such as Galicia or Euskadi, they have their own languages too. This week there has been a bit of controversy about the fact that the senators are now allowed to talk in any of the official languages of Spain, meaning that right now in the senate they're using translators. Why the controversy? Well, let's say that right-wing political parties didn't really like the idea, not because of the "waste" of money, but because they think it is a measure that "abuses" Spanish, and it's not the only thing they don't like, they're also against most of the laws that are made in here to preserve Catalan (as if they really cared!) just because they say that Spanish speakers are being pursued. Personally I think that maybe this is not the right time to implement the "multi-language" system on the senate, but mainly because of the economical situation, I'm of the opinion that it had to be done sooner or later, and anyways the ideal would be that all the senators could understand all the official Spanish languages, but that's another problem.

You see, in here not many people is really concerned about their language abilities, sure you've meet some spaniard that was speaking a decent or fluent English, but you've to come here and have a look at how many youngsters just don't give a f**k about other languages, even if they have to study English at school! Of course there is the other side of the spectrum, people like myself who think that it is important to know other languages. I can speak fluently Catalan, which is my mother language, Spanish, which I couldn't understand a word 'til I was 9 (believe me, it didn't take long for me to catch up, but I had to work hard), English, which I've been studying for almost 15 years, additionally I can speak some French, though I'm better at understanding it than at producing it, and I've been trying to learn Icelandic online for a year (problem being that since I have to do it by myself I keep leaving it for another day and I'm still stuck with basics... even if a year ago I was able to read a short simple text on my own!). I think that there's nothing bad on every people having their own language, variety is richness! And also I think that knowing more than one language is something good that everyone should want for themselves, their kids and so on. Because is there anything worse than a head of state or government that can't comunicate with his/her counterparts without the assistance of a translator? Would you like anything like this for your country? Believe it or not many of the presidents can only speak their own language, of course for English-speaking presidents that's an easy thing, English is still one of the leading languages in the world, but does that mean that they don't need to make the effort of learning another language?

P.S.: I never check my posts before posting, I'm sorry, maybe there's some kind of mistake, my English teacher doesn't seem to like my writings lately... so maybe I'm getting worse at it, which would be funny since I'm getting better at speaking...