*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.

[–] jlar@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And apparently at least one that doesn't understand how jokes work.

[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Always at least one dude trying to explain how the obvious joke isn't factually correct.

[–] friendlymessage@feddit.de 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

[–] friendlymessage@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] PolyLlamaRous@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

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.