this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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*white Americans maybe. There is a massive amount of the US that English is their second language... But not speaking a second language is really a problem many places.
And apparently at least one that doesn't understand how jokes work.
Always at least one dude trying to explain how the obvious joke isn't factually correct.
Also black Americans. All in all, only 20% of Americans in general, only about 4% of white Americans and 7% of black Americans are bilingual. Compare this to 84% of Germans for example, a far less diverse country, where 38% speak two languages, 29% three languages, 17% even more than three.
Also, there probably are people earning a living wage doing freelancing in the US. It's a joke, a two-liner at that. Of course it's an oversimplification.
And of course Europe has so many bilingual people because they live so close to other cultures speaking other languages. If every region in the US spoke a different language things would be different obviously
That's one reason for sure, especially in border regions. The other one is that for basically any high paying job being fluent in English is a requirement as most companies operate internationally. You can have a very successful career speaking only one language, but nowadays only if that language happens to be English.
Germany may be a poor example. I do happen to live in your example (Germany). And it's far fetched to say Germany isn't diverse. You know how many guest workers to refugees we have taken in since the 60s? I just googled "foreigner percentage US" and the same for Germany. It's 13% for US and 18% for Germany. This is non-inclusive of the millions of second or third generation Turkish here.
Also, if you have ever been a foreigner in Germany like myself, you would know that these number are far overstated for German people that can usefully speak another language. There are better examples for your point, like Holland or Luxemburg with genuinely high second or third language levels. Or you can also look at native English countries and see the US isn't alone in it's low adoption of second languages.