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> if bilingualism is talking to your parents in kitchen Spanish without actually traveling anywhere, rather than learning the language of a culture that's alien to you so that you can spend an extended period of time there, is that just as enriching? Does an anglophone Canadian who learns French really expand their worldview that much?

Yes

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Do you have a reason to back that up? I'm far less sure.

(I mean, I think the advantage is that you are able to speak to more people easily and in their native tongue, which is a whole other advantage, but that's different than "expanding your mind" directly by learning another language.)

>Does an anglophone Canadian who learns French really expand their worldview that much?

I went to high school in Ontario with anglophones who took French immersion, learned fluent conversational French, graduated high school legally credentialed a bilingual, but then proceeded to move to Toronto and never really leave the province. I don't like being judgmental about people's worldly experiences, but I don't think that those high school French classes really did much to colour their worldview, most of us just knew it as a reliable way to secure a 90+ average.

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