Inspired by a side conversation in this thread.
This is purely out of curiosity and has no ulterior meaning. Obviously I am interested in the difference between these two specific countries, but if you’re from a different country and want to contribute to the thread, please feel free.
eta: in retrospect, my poll working was kind of weird. By “one language”, I mean “English”. shrug
American, speak English only.
Too late to edit the poll to add Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland?
Well, yeah, that’s not what people were talking about in the thread that got me thinking about this. We could have another, more inclusive poll, I guess. Feel free to make one, it’d probably be a pretty different conversation. (Especially since lots of Canadians aren’t native English speakers.)
Most Brits have a smattering of another European language - my parents can get by in French and some Italian, but wouldn’t say they were bilingual though.
Don’t forget we have a lot of Brits from the Indian subcontinent who will speak Punjabi or Hindi etc. as a second mother-tongue.
Right, lots of Americans have enough Spanish to have a simple conversation, too, but wouldn’t consider themselves bilingual. (I’m one of them; well, I’m bilingual, but not with Spanish. On my resume it says that I am “proficient in Spanish”.)
I didn’t forget. In fact - correct me if I’m wrong - I expect that most Brits who are multilingual are so as a result of being immigrants or the children of immigrants.
I’m pretty sure that’s the case with multilingual Americans, anyway. Lots of immigrants, but not a lot of emphasis on learning languages in school.
British, speak French and Spanish and very basic holiday Italian and German. Lots of the Brits I know speak at least one other European language, but that might well be a skewed sample. (And doesn’t take into account those who come from bilingual households, as Wallenstein mentions.)
I’ll be interested to see the results - I had thought a lot of Americans spoke Spanish, and presumably there are quite a lot of people from bilingual households in the US, too.
To be a better comparison, the poll should distinguish people who grew up speaking only English. Lots of natively bilingual people in both countries. In the UK, the Welsh, for example, often speak Welsh as well as English. Loads of Spanish-speaking Americans, etc.
I used to have enough Spanish to have a simple to moderate conversation, as a result of taking (Mexican) Spanish in junior high and high school, and living in Spain for a while. Speaking my Mexican Spanish in Spain was rather amusing, as apparently I have a pretty thick accent, plus the vocabulary is somewhat different, plus a lot of the Spaniards spoke with a Castillian accent. The Spaniards who spoke English naturally spoke British English, which was also amusing.
I can still speak some Spanish, though not nearly as much or nearly as well as I used to. I’m going to check “American, one language”, because I’m certainly not fluent in Spanish.
I also took French for a year in junior high, but I really didn’t get much past basic pronounciation, vocabulary, and grammar.
My father grew up speaking a mix of Italian and English words. His parents had immigrated from Sicily. When he first started school, he had problems, because he’d know the Italian word for something, but not the English word. As he grew up, he and his siblings made a concious choice to avoid speaking or even listening to Italian. They would not answer questions that were asked in Italian, for instance.
Well, that’s a different question, too. (Although it would be an interesting poll, maybe I’ll do that one next.) I really only wanted to get a very loose idea.
How many people in Wales actually speak Welsh? I am far from an expert on Wales, but I once spent three days in Aberystwyth and didn’t hear a single bit of Welsh. And I was listening for it, too, as I was very curious about it. Saw plenty of it on the signs, though. (Same as when I was in Dublin, saw lots of Irish on signs, never actually heard it spoken.)
American - only speak one language.
I used to speak Spanish fairly well as a kid and I was learning German, but then we moved to an area where nobody I knew spoke either so most of my vocabulary in each is gone. Eventually I’ll start learning either (or maybe both) again someday.
I grew up in the United States only knowing English until high school. Since then, I had about 4 1/2 years of Spanish and 4 1/2 years of Japanese. I am basic-conversational, but not fluent by any means. I am far from the norm here, I just like languages. Most people who grow up in English-only households only get exposure from learning a language in high school, and even that isn’t required.
FWIW, around here the high schools offer just three languages- Spanish, French, and German. Their popularity is in that same order. Some schools are beginning to have other languages while some are also being cut. Before high school it’s pretty tough to begin learning a second language, I wish I had the means when I was younger.
I’m American and I speak 4 languages proficiently: English, Polish, German and Spanish.
British, and only one language fluently, though I have the usual European very basic smattering of conversational snippets of French and German and so on. I know a tiny bit of BSL and Japanese, but that’s from active learning.
American - speak only English. I’ve studied German, Arabic, and Chinese but none of them to a proficiency to have a good conversation or consider myself multi-lingual.
Europeans are well known to be able to speak many different languages. They generally consider this normal and start doing it when they are young. Weekly, monthly or yearly trips to neighboring countries is normal. Chinese, Japanese, and Americans are famously monolingual. If you want to redo the poll, you might get more interesting results if you divvy up the European section into speaking 2, 3, 4+ languages.
I’m British and my French isn’t that bad. Nowhere near as good as my Mum though. My parents live in France and she was a candidate in the last set of local elections. The Mayor has her on speed dial for all English related emergencies 
American, speak only English. As a small child, I originally spoke Tamil at home, but that’s faded now to the point where I can’t speak it, and only understand my family (with a lot of contextual help).
Yeah, Britain is not known for its multilingualism. IME, lots of British people don’t even consider themselves to be Europeans.
Having spent a lot of time in Europe myself, I think you’re overrating the linguistic abilities of many Europeans.
American, grew up speaking English. I speak pretty fluent Danish (a little rusty these days, I was quite fluent) and have a smattering of German. My brothers all speak at least one other language fluently (German, Korean, and who knows what else in the case of my middle brother). My husband, who grew up speaking English, is fluent in Spanish–as is one of his brothers, while another brother speaks Japanese (lived there for a long time, now in Singapore).
So that’s a total of 7 natively born white-bread Americans who have all acquired a second language. It doesn’t count the other spouses, but come to think of it only two of them are American anyway. One of those two is fluent in French.
I know an awful lot of people who have learned second languages as adults.