Do American high school students learn foreign languages in their high schools (ages 14-18 usually)? The answer to that is sadly no. One, it’s never required to enroll in a forgoing language in most US high schools (unless the student plans on attending certain Universities, and then everything they’ve learned is promptly forgotten once the class ends, either out of disinterest or non-exposure to the target language anyway). And, second, they usually invest insufficient energy in learning the target language in general. The reason (although typically French, Spanish and occasionally German are offered) is that students are inundated with English daily and take little or no interest in foreign languages or cultures, simply because they live in the US, a huge country. The US has a good number of bilingual Spanish/English speakers, but that is the exception and has nothing to do with language learning (no one „learns“ his or her native language or is „taught“ it. It’s acquired by the language acquisition function of the brain in children, which is not limited to one native language only. Learning a foreign language really requires hundreds upon hundreds of truly dedicated hours of immersion in a foreign language to learn it as an adult, and I would say a keen interest interest in the people and culture of the people and culture for whom the language is native. It has to say relevant and interesting to the learner or the learning will simply cease. True mastery of a foreign language is a long-term and highly intensive effort. But it can be achieved.