In Europe, one of the countries where being multilingual is completely taken for granted is Andorra.
Official language: Catalan. Languages most spoken by visitors: Spanish and French. Learned in school: English, German and Italian at the very least.
I’ve known women from Andorra who didn’t know their country was between France and Spain, but who spoke six languages with native fluency and could rent you a hotel room and solve most hotel-room-related troubles in three more.
Can any Doper tell me: what percentage of non-Hispanic Americans, in US-states with lots of Hispanic speakers, do speak at least a bit of Spanish beside English? How many Americans speak French near the border with the French speaking parts of Canada?
My American cousin told me she could pick French, Spanish and Chinese as subjects in school.
“Almost everyone” is a bit of an exaggeration,(based on my anecdotal experience) but certainly a very good proportion.
Looking specifically towards Malaysia, a Malaysian chinese will normally speak his dialect (Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkein being most common) + English and Malay being taught at school.
In Singapore, since 198? all school leavers are expected (under pain of failing their primary school leaving exam meaning they cannot proceed to secondary school) to be bi-lingual in English and Mother Tongue (Mandarin, Malay or Tamil) + many will also speak their cradle dialect. (my wife, as an example, is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese)
How about the Vatican? I expect most of the people there are fluent in English, Latin, (Ancient) Greek, and their native tongues.
Monolingual people are the exception in the Philippines rather than the rule. It is not unusual for filipinos to speak Tagalog/Filipino (the national language), English (the other national language), and one or two provincial languages as well.
Hmnn… the way I see it, all the speakers of languages moved to the Vatican in a professional capacity. It is a country allright, but not a natural one (how many kids are born in the Vatican? 
It is comparable in that sense to the larger universities, or whatever city currently hosts the UN meetings.
ETA: it is nice to see that English has replaced Latin as the international language of science. (Is that the case all over the world, by the way)? The Dutch school system used to have gifted classes in highschool where kids were also taught Greek and Latin (“the Gymnasium”) . I still had those on my curriculum. Never had much use for them. That has been replaced by classes, not about English, but about other subjects (physics, for instance) where the class is given IN English.
Sure seems like it is at times.
And add another reference to Switzerland. (Swiss) German, French, Italian, and English is quite common considering how small the country is, and how culturally powerful the surrounding nations are. Not to mention those who throw in another language just out of curiosity, school, or for employment purposes. Most common to find quadrilinguals in Bern, obviously; the further towards the border you get, the more dominant one language becomes.
Almost all of us took Spanish in high school. Almost none of us can speak any Spanish at all, short of ordering a beer in Rosarito (everyone speaks English in Rosarito, it’s practically an American town). All the people I know who speak Spanish well enough to communicate work with Spanish speaking workers (construction and restaurants).
I speak from experience, having actually lived there, and still do.
I have met a girl from Malaysia who told me that her family were Cantonese whereas the other Chinese where she came from were Mandarin (could have been the other way round), which meant that she had to know both dialects. Likewise, as the Malay population there spoke a local language she had to know both that and Malay. On top of that she spoke English.
As it happens, I think the OP is not interested in people who have been taught other languages at school (as in my case English, German and French), but people living in places where there is a linguistic mix causing them to know two or more languages.
India .
Each of the 28 states has its own language. 70-80% of india understands/speaks hindi. Around 75% literacy rate, so perhaps that many people understand very very basic english. Vast majority of people are multilingual.
I speak hindi, english, punjabi, sindhi.
I am Pakistani. I speak English, Urdu, Punjabi and a bit of Pashto. j also understand, Seraiki, Potohari and Hindko although arguably the last two are merely dialects. I studied basic Arabic at school and can read Farsi to an extent. I am not even uncommon.
Not necessarily, if most people there speak Pidgin along with their native language.
Depends on what you mean by “a bit”. Very few non-Hispanic Americans could carry on any kind of a conversation in Spanish, although almost everyone knows a few words (dinero, gracias, uno, dos, tres…). Most people take a year or two of a foreign language in HS, and then forget 90% of it when they graduate (if not before).
I took 5 years of Spanish in school, have always been interested in it, and can barely hold me own in a conversation as long as the native speakers don’t talk too fast. And I have lots of exposure to native speakers, too.
French… I don’t have a lot of experience with the Canadian border, but other than some pockets of ethnic French speakers in New England, I don’t think you’re going to find a lot of non-French speakers being able to converse in French.
These peoples live isolated from each other with little or no communication between them and I doubt that their languages could be of any use should they come down to the coast. It is Tok Pisin they would have to speak there.
Yeah. Trying to speak their native language would be like pissin’ in the wind!
When I think of it, even in Europe, quite a number of people will speak two languages : the official language and the local dialect, that can range from very similar to totally different (Alsatian, Breton or Basque in France, for instance). Local dialects can be dying (France), commonly used (Germany, Italy) or institutionalized (Spain)
Also, someone mentioned Belgium, but despite the country being bilingual (Flemish/French*) a surprisingly low number of people speak both languages (and the current cultural/political climate there isn’t an incentive to do so).
Also, since Andorra has been mentioned (and I can’t wrap my head around the concept that citizens from such a micro state might not know that they’re bordering Spain and France), Luxemburgers are all trilingual (German, French and Luxem…err… whatever is the name of the local language they speak)
(*) Technically trilingual, since there’s a German-speaking area in Belgium
Most 1stL English-speaking South Africans do speak Afrikaans. They at least learn it at school, if not speak it outside. Almost all 1stL Afrikaans-speaking South Africans also speak English. Most 1stL Bantu speakers speak English and/or Afrikaans, often both, and they frequently speak at least one other SA Bantu language, given the mixed nature of the townships. That’s completely leaving out the 2ndL French- and Portuguese-speaking African immigrants, who have to learn at least two of those just to get by, in addition to their native Bantu/Other languages. Or those who speak tamil or Urdu.
Or the pidgins like Fanagalo or Kaapsetaal.
I was once surrounded by four Belgian ladies in a pub in London who kept switching between Dutch and French in different combinations all the time, seemingly not aware that they were doing it.
I know a person with a French name, coming from Brussels, who claims he is basically a German speaker.
Haroo! I live next door, and also speak from experience. It could be my horrible accent, but while most people understand my English, by no means is it uncommon that I get blank stares. Guesstimate would be 15% or so.