World of Frozen opens at Hong Kong Disneyland

Anecdotally, I had little interest in learning another language when I was in grade school, but it was a requirement. I think I had introductory classes in junior high, but high school required either four years of two languages (two years each), or three years of one language, students' choice. Being mostly Italian, that's the only language I had any interest in learning, but that was one of the languages my school only offered for two years (along with a second language for the other two). So I muddled through three years of Spanish and it didn't stick.

Fa schifo.

I'm pissed that I ended up in French and never had the option to choose. I actually went to school with kids who spoke Spanish, and now I live in Florida. It would have actually been useful.

Let me help you get started:

Por favor manténgase alejado de las puertas.

I speak Disney Spanish.

My second favorite behind the monorail:

Para su seguridad, permanezca sentado con las manos, brazos, pies, y piernas dentro el barco. Y cuida sus niños. ¡Muchas gracias!

At least it’s the one I hear the most (Pirates.)

GoBucks89:

37% in the Netherlands, 28% in Germany, 23% in US, 22% in the UK, 20% in France and 11% in Italy

This is surprising.

Even 20 years ago when I was in Amsterdam, everyone spoke English. Maybe that's just because it's a large city with tourism?

Nowadays, however, I think it's more common. I have friends in Italy with a kid around my son's age. He can speak 3 languages and is working on a fourth. They learn Italian and English concurrently when they're little, then pick another language later in school, and another in college. So he speaks Italian, English, and French pretty fluently and is currently learning German.

I wonder if the percentages of those who aren't bilingual are top heavy with older generations. I've been to Italy, Czech Republic, and Germany this year and I definitely noticed that everyone under about 40 can pretty much speak English perfectly.

kpjb:

Amsterdam

One of my colleagues grew up and trained in the US, but taught at Vrije in Amsterdam. He was always fond of saying that they didn't really need passports in the Netherlands, because if you could speak Dutch fluently and with the correct accent, you must be a citizen.

Even though Hong Kong was an English colony, it seemed like more English was spoken in Tokyo than Hong Kong when we visited. But no matter what, it behooves you to learn a few phrases to be polite. Hello. Please. Thank you. Etc.

Jeff, like Florida, it's definitely helpful to speak a bit of Spanish here in Southern California.

The percentages from GoBucks' link are for people who use "two or more languages on a daily basis". I imagine that number is way different than the percent of people who are fluent in another language.

Maybe. Maybe not. Article notes there is also something of an experience bias. Travel to Europe and you likely will spend much/all of your time in urban centers in tourist central areas (such as hotels, restaurants, museums, etc). You are more likely to encounter people speaking another language (often English) than you are if you are outside urban centers or outside tourist focused areas. Based on that experience, there will be a tendency to overstate the percentage of people who are bilingual in that country.

GoBucks89:

Point being that Americans don't suck at language (at least on relative basis) as much as is often said.

Given that the data apparently comes via the census (which is not limited to American citizens), I wonder what portion of bilingual people in this country are American-born. Anecdotally, the vast majority of multilingual folks I know in the US do not count English as their first language.

Edit: Actually, they note that only 3.5% of people live outside their home country, so then again...

Makes sense to me that if bilingual is defined as speaking multiple languages every day, people whose first language was not the native language of their country of residence would be more likely to meet the definition. Chinese family across the street from me speaks Chinese with family and friends on a daily basis. They also need to speak English on a daily basis. My kids are conversationally fluent in German but they do not speak it daily because they do not encounter people who speak German on a daily basis. So my kids wouldn't count as bilingual in that article but the Chinese family would though both know 2 languages. I would say my kids' skills in German are between the kids of the Chinese family (who speak better English than my kids to German) and parents (who speak worse English than my kids do German).

I think its also important to look at incentives. What incentives do people have to learn another language. Going beyond the learning for learning sake, brain benefits of learning another language/skill, etc. If there is some more tangible benefit to doing so (such as with a job, in a relationship, with a hobby/interest, etc), you are more likely to learn another language. But at this point in general, if you speak English only, there is less likely to be an incentive to learn another language than there is if the only language you speak is non-English. Not true in all parts of the world, all circumstances/situations, etc. And may well change going forward. But at this point in time and as a general matter, I think its true.