Lead generation companies can be a nightmare as most of us who have fallen for their pitch can testify. That said, just because someone does not speak English well (or at all) doesn't mean they are not a good lead. In the US we seem to expect everyone to speak English. In the rest of the world, most people speak 2 or 3 languages.

We really do represent a rather small segment of the population of the planet and being willing to learn even some basic phrases in other languages can serve us well - we can at least make a referral to someone is is fluent in (one of) the client's languages.

 Years ago,when I was in high school, I learned to crochet on a ferry boat traveling up the Canadian coast to Alaska from a Czech woman who saw that I was interested and kept trying different languages until we figured out that we both spoke enough French to understand each other. She had no reason to make all that extra effort but she did it to be kind to a young teen aged girl. How much more good could it do for us? Just making the effort could lead to a lot more referrals because you DID make the effort when others did not.

Joshua,

It was clear from your post that what youyou were upset about was that you paid for the lead. That's why I started out by saying that these companies can be a nightmare like so many other people did. The leads who do speak English are often not good. People use the Internet to surf and do basic research before they ever get serious about buying or sellng and a lot of those people are the names we get when we sign up with these companies.

I did not mean to sound like I was scolding you for expecting someone in the US to speak English. I was trying to say that we need, as a profession, to be professional and look first at a clients actual needs and whether or not we are a good match for them or can refer them to someone who is.

I also am not sure that everyone who buys a home in this country wants to be a part of the country. Some people, like many Americans who buy overseas property, are simply investors looking to make a profit. Some may be looking for a vacation home or are here because of a transfer by an employer--we don't know until we ask. In my experience many people, especially in European countries do not just know basic phrases, they are fluent, mostly from necessity since many of the countries are smaller than a lot of our states and the travel and exchange is extensive.

Your best point, I think, is that basic phrases do not cover our fiduciary duty. My Spanish is not all that great--I won't starve or get lost but I can have a hard time with normal conversation. 

Doing the right thing is enough of an issue that there are people I have worked with who grew up speaking Spanish who would never do business with a Spanish speaking client without a translator. 

The particulars or a real estate transaction are complicated enough when both parties are operating in their native tongue whether it is English or Portuguese. Spanish is different in Spain and in Mexico and still again in Costa Rica or New York or New Mexico. I once had customers who were from Tibet. They understood my English much better than I did theirs. I can't imagine what we would have done if they had actually found a house they wanted to buy when their translator was not there.