quote:Originally posted by harleykwin: Ooh! I just remembered something else - minor, but it just came back to me. I was studying abroad a few years back and living in London at the time. My roommate and I went to see a movie - Before Sunrise I think it was called. Anyway, its about an American (Ethan Hawke) who meets a pretty French girl on a train. He tries to chat her up and she speaks to him in French. Embarrassed, he admits that he only speaks English. She looks at him with a little bit of disdain and says,"Oh, then clearly you must be an American." I cannot begin to describe the laughter that errupted in the theatre - apparently, the image of Americans being arrogant enough to expect others to automatically speak English is a joke to Europeans.
Europeans are typically, and casually, multilingual.
So are most Asians.
Its seems to be Anglophones who either don't bother or, more accurately perhaps, don't need to learn a second or third language.
