Elizabeth wrote [["What do Europeans call someone who only
speaks one language?" An American!]]
** Having lived in Germany for seven years, I know this joke. However, in defense of Americans (something I found myself occasionally doing while living overseas), is that we dont have much of an opportunity to speak anything else.
The analogy I gave to my German friends was to think, "Texas". From Houston, 4 hours east put me in Louisiana (still the USA). Four hours from Hesson, Germany put me in (at the time) East Germany. Anything past that was a Slavic language.
From Houston, 18 North is Oklahoma (from Hesson that puts me across the English Channel). Eighteen hours west is Arizona, & 8 hours south is Mexico (France & Switerland, respectfully). Where they still speak English. Even if I go to Canada, what do I hear? You get the picture.
So, Americans are not linguistic idiots, we just dont have an opportunity to speak anything else.
Whereas the average European is muli-lingual. My German friends use to carry on conversations in Russion, German, Italian, French, Greek & Arabic ... just for fun. Being the red-blooded American that I am, I retaliated one day by speaking Pig Latin. Rather got them riled-up. Not only was it a language that they did not know, but one that does not translate into German.