"I know this is a silly question before I ask it, but can you Americans speak any other language besides English?"

The title is a quote from Bridget Von Hammersmark in the movie Inglourious Basterds.  I've watched it a couple of times recently because it helps to hear German spoken by natives since there aren't many opportunities like that here.  This quote struck a chord with me because it's so true.  In the movie, basically every single European character (and the actor) speaks at least two languages fluently but the only attempt in the movie the Americans make at speaking a second language is laughable at best.  The saddest part is that it is a completely accurate depiction of most Americans and it's depressing.

When I started thinking about writing this post, I realized that a lot of the time, I feel like I was deprived of so many cultural opportunities because I was born in America.  I understand that many Americans think that America is THE GREATEST THING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF ALL TIME EVER, but the rest of the world doesn't necessarily agree.

Most people I know didn't start learning a second language until middle school at the earliest.  The best chance you have of learning a new language is when you're still very young.  I guess this isn't entirely shocking when we're led to believe that since everyone else can speak English, there's really no need to learn a second language; and quite frankly, there's really not much of a use for it when you would have to travel more than one or two or three thousand miles in any direction to get somewhere where you can actually use the language you're learning.

Since I started attempting to learn German, I picked up a lot pretty quickly.  I can write well and read well, even though I still have a long way to go.  I can't, however, speak well or comprehend spoken German well which is why I've been watching the movies with German as the spoken language and listening to the Harry Potter books in German.  Even with all of that, the opportunities I have to interact with people in the German language are limited mostly to my short and infrequent trips overseas, occasionally Skyping with a native speaker, and talking to my older sister.  It's so frustrating to know that in order to really be able to become fluent in the language, I need to use the language on a daily basis.  In order for that to happen, I need to live in Europe.  In order to move to Europe, both Matt and I need to speak fluent enough German to get jobs to support ourselves.  Either that, or we can win the lottery.  Honestly, I'm not sure which one is more (or less) likely to happen.  It's why I get so frustrated sometimes.

I'm not trying to minimize the things that I have in America that I am so grateful for - my husband, the rest of my family, Husker football (it had to be said), etc. - and I know that the grass isn't always greener, but in this instance I am absolutely 100% sure that it is.  The language-learning opportunities in Europe don't exist in America and they can't.