[MattGaiser]

Most learning is neccesity driven learning. If you speak English, in most major cities around the globe you need nothing else.

Canada has a kerfuffle about how the CEO of a major company here didn't speak any French after a decade of living in Quebec, but virtually nobody I know who has lived in Montreal has picked any French up at all (assuming they started out Anglophone).

I know people in Germany who have picked up next to no German too.

[pottertheotter]

Your comment about people in Germany not picking up German surprised me. I don’t have a ton of first-hand experience, but my impression has been that it was more of necessity there than other European countries.

[umanwizard]

I’ve visited Berlin three times and most people I interacted with spoke English perfectly. The English level was about as high as in Montreal.

Perhaps it’s different if you live there and have to interact with more people; I’m not sure.

[not2b]

I did more than 20 trips to Germany for work in the 1990s and early 2000s (I'm American). Of course my work colleagues there spoke good English, as did the staff at the hotels I stayed at, museums and airports, but enough people did not (shop owners, some restaurants, agents at train stations) that it really helped me to learn at least enough German to order at restaurants and shops and struggle through basic conversations; I took classes and practiced when I could. Often a mixture of my bad, limited German and the person I was speaking to's bad, limited English got things handled.

[umanwizard]

Was that in Berlin? Maybe the English level has improved since then.

[CogitoCogito]

I lived in Berlin 2005-2006 and found learning German to be practically a necessity then. Since then the city seems to have changed significantly. In fact, in my experience I would even put most of the changes to be post 2012 or so (at least I remember it seeming fairly similar then). The city seems to be evolving at an incredible rate.

[not2b]

Aachen (my employer acquired a company that was started by RWTH-Aachen people). Aachen is a university town on the border so I expect more English speakers than average. I travelled all over the Rhineland, often did two-week trips and played tourist on weekends. Some conferences took me to Munich, Frankfurt and Mainz.

[raverbashing]

I can understand not learning it too much, but not picking any of it just sounds lazy and privileged

I tend to agree with "Lazy Anglo Brain".

[CogitoCogito]

I would find it odd to live in Quebec without learning French, but I find languages and language-learning very interesting. I guess there are many people out there who don't share my interests, yet are able to live and succeed in Quebec despite of this. Language romanticism aside, I'd expect this to become an increasingly common phenomenon.