... we have an extraordinary
luxury that most people in the world... and most people in
history... never had: a large, prosperous, & stable land.
This affects Americans & American culture in many ways,
monolinguism is merely one of the obvious ones.

Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
Good point.


I have a lot of friends & colleagues from other countries,
and they sometimes make fun of me (nad Americans in general)
for lacking language skills. For example, one guy I've
worked with a little who is also a sailor is from
Switzerland and so he speaks French & German; also Italian &
Spanish & Swedish (he works for a Scandinavian company) &
Portuguese (his wife is Brazilian), probably a few others as
well. And by this I mean he can hold a professional
discussion in these languages, not just get by in a restaurant.

OTOH I occasionally make fun right back at them by saying,
"I can drive for 3 days and still be in a country where they
speak my language. You can't drive for 3 hours without being
in a country where they speak a totally different language."

So, guess why I don't speak many languages... I DON'T HAVE TO!




Well, I hate traveling - absolutely hate it.

That's a shame. Lots of very cool places out in the wide world.

Many of them can be reached by boat

DSK