Originally Posted by
gojirasan
Japan? Brazil? This guy is ridiculous. Those countries are extremely easy to travel in. And Japanese and Portuguese are both easy languages. And what's his obsession with finding addresses? To even mention that when talking about difficult to travel in countries is just silly. The US is obviously a difficult country to travel in even without the TSA. It's huge. Hardly anyone speaks anything but English. Domestic airfares are very expensive. Visas are absurdly expensive if you need one and difficult to get. The TSA molesters bring it over the top. Even North Korea isn't going to sexually violate you when you arrive. In that way I think we are unique. I think it legitimately makes the top 10. Maybe even the top 5.
Isn't it really difficult to find someone who speaks Japanese in Bonn? Someone who speaks Portuguese in Beijing? Someone who speaks German in Vancouver? Someone who speaks Czech in Rio?
I don't travel internationally, so I'm not terribly familiar with how things go in other countries, but I was under the impression that English was a fairly common second language throughout the world, because of its adoption as the standard language for air travel, ships, commerce, and diplomacy. And since English is the primary language in the US, that makes it less necessary for Americans to learn a second language unless they travel internationally a lot.
Except near the borders. As with all countries, the closer you get to the Mexican border, the more people you will find who speak Spanish.
But there are still huge immigrant communities in all of the major US cities with a large percentage of people who speak their ancestral language. Greek, Russian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, and many other languages can be heard if you drive through the right neighborhoods. Visit San Diego during the summer, you can easily find folks who are fluent in Klingon, Elvish, and Na'vi.