You are doing great in the league and I'm sure that you will build your network quickly.
I can imagine that people sometimes just don't know what to say back and that's why they just reply with 'Thank you' and this is the end of the discussion. I can also imagine that for many of them the issue is with the language. They would like to say something but don't know how and don't want to come over in a bad way (happened to me a few times as well)
I see that you are very organized! How often do you analyse that list?
I just started to keep track of unique users about five weeks ago. I've looked at the list regularly. I can't say it's been that helpful other than in keeping track of who I've engaged with each week, so I can more or less keep track of the PS (people spoken to) category. I like to have an idea of what I've done so I can see what more I need to do. Most of the time, it's helpful. Every now and then, it's not. :)
I can understand the language barrier. I speak Spanish, but I don't go into the strictly Spanish posts. I could, I guess, but there's more than enough going on in English that I don't know that I have to.
re: network
That's just it. It should be there by now, or better said, it's there, it just should be a lot bigger. Eventually I suppose it could be. It hasn't helped that quite a few of the folks that I used to engage with no longer do it, or have curtailed their time here. It means constantly finding others to engage with, and that's not the easiest of things to do for an assortment of reasons.