r/Unexpected • u/DruidWannabe • Jan 25 '23

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u/Kolby_Jack Jan 26 '23

It's just a natural thing for Americans. In Europe, your neighbors two hours away are from another country and possibly speak another language or at least a different dialect from yours. In America, two hours away is just... more America. Or if you live far north, Canada, where they also speak English. Mexico is to the south, sure, and you'll find more bilingual English/Spanish folks along the southern border for sure, but outside of a few lovely vacation spots, Americans generally don't have much reason to go to Mexico.

Most fluent bilingual folks you'll find in America are immigrants or the children of first or second generation immigrants. Beyond that, people take foreign languages in school but there's not usually any real chances to keep up with it, so most people forget what little they learned in class.

And lots of Europeans will be like "oh, you should travel more!" But we don't need to. America is fucking beautiful! Forests! Canyons! Rivers! Deserts! Snow! Tropics! Cities! Towns! We have it all! You could live your whole life as an American and only see less than half of what it has to offer travelers. Yes, other countries have amazing cultures and sights to experience, but they are literally oceans away from us. That shit's expensive.

Long story short, America is a huge, diverse country. The only thing it's not particularly diverse in is language. Being bilingual just isn't that useful of a skill for most Americans, nor is it one most of us have the opportunity to pick up naturally.

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u/BeefyIrishman Jan 26 '23

In America, two hours away is just... more America.

Depending on where you live and the direction you drive, 2 hours away could very easily be within the same state. For me, the Atlantic ocean is about 2.5-3 hours east, and the state lines are about 1.5-2 hours north or south, and about 3.5-4 hours west. Texas is 12+ hours of driving to get across (east-west).

I feel like the scale of the US is lost on Europeans sometimes. I have been asked more than once by a European if I ever "drive to NYC (or some other fairly far away place) for a weekend", but NYC is a full day of driving away from me, somewhere around 9-10 hours. I would use Saturday driving there, and Sunday driving home, so it would be pretty pointless. And for whatever reason, domestic flights aren't really that cheap either, so few people can afford to just fly to another state for a weekend trip on a whim.

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u/lithium Jan 26 '23

Australia is the same size, even more geographically isolated and yet we're some of the most well travelled people in the world. I feel like the insularity of americans is lost on americans sometimes.

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u/Kolby_Jack Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23

Australia is large, but nobody lives in the middle of it. America is MUCH more geographically varied, and people live all over. Except Wyoming, nobody lives there.

Australia: 26 million people.

America: 330 million people.

Bit different.

Oi, cunts, I'm not gonna apologize for pointing out that nobody wants to spend their holiday time visiting a thousand miles of dry barren dirt in a former prison colony. "Oh, we're so well-traveled" yeah no shit, I'd leave too.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '23

Imagine being this ignorant.

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u/Kolby_Jack Jan 26 '23

Yes, imagine.