| There are a number of institutes/colleges dedicated to language learning in the US: Alliance Française [0], Goethe institute [1] with multiple satellite offices around the country, all offering language classes for a few hundred dollars. There are a multitude, nay - infinite! number of online classes with teachers who will use "traditional", textbook-based approaches. [2] Young Americans regularly go for 1-2-3 month trips to Italy, France, Germany, etc. American passports give folks a ton of latitude. You can stay in a hostel and eat cheaply - many thousands of people have done it. I'm not saying it's easy, but I will definitely push back on the idea that it's impossible. (and will also absolutely agree that the convenience of an app will be 10,000,000x more tempting to use than doing any of the above) [0] https://www.afusa.org/ [1] https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/index.html [2] https://www.italki.com/en/teachers/french |
Its really not that common outside of really wealthy people. Only 50% or so Americans under 30 years old even have a passport, much less spend months overseas. And that's a percentage that has gone way up over the years. In fact, its probably more common to find people that have barely even left the same state than have traveled in Europe, especially so for spending any appreciable amount of time in any particular part of Europe.
https://today.yougov.com/travel/articles/46028-adults-under-...