In response to my perspective Second Language Pitfalls, Associate Professor Hammond (Feb. 14, Daily Egyptian) implies that I believe it unnecessary for Americans to learn foreign languages. Au contraire. That was not my primary point, nor what I actually said.

I stated that, over the years, I have tempered my zeal for escaping tongue-tied status because I have doubts about the urgency for most of us to learn foreign languages. Moreover, if we are learning another language for business reasons, we might do better to focus on empathy and cultural sensitivity. I stand by those statements.

If a person intends to conduct only business in a foreign country, and not live there, he or she generally would be better placed by concentrating on local customs and social etiquette instead of the language. For the typical, short business trip, an executive certainly needs to learn key phrases in the local language, like Please, Thank you, Excuse me, and Where is the nearest restroom? But attempting to close business deals in the local language without a trusted interpreter, as depicted in the ad I described, could be disastrous.

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Obviously, an American living in a foreign country should learn the language of that country, and not merely for business purposes. A U.S. journalist residing in Germany, who is assigned to cover German politics, had better learn German for social, as well as, professional occasions. However, this was not the issue I addressed.

To claim that someone can learn a foreign language in 30 days and, if he or she doesn’t learn a foreign language, others will pass him or her by in the business world, is deceitful and misleading. Learning a foreign language well usually takes years of diligent study and practice. More sincere reasons also exist for promoting language learning. The bottom line is that language skills are only a small part of the overall process involved in selling a product or service abroad.