> If you go to, say, continental Europe the situation is
radically different and individuals are commonly in contact with
widely different languages, even language types.
This might be true for border regions like the Alsace, or the Oder-Neisse border, but it's not true for the vast majority of people within a single country, in my experience.
And even in the case of border regions it depends. A lot of Polish folks along the border speak very good German, but I don't know any Germans from those regions who speak Polish.
Ditto for the Netherlands: most Dutch I've encountered speak flawless German or English, or both, but I don't know many English or German speakers who learn Dutch.
And yeah, I agree with the point Dennis C. made: in the immigrant country the United States, hardly anyone speaks foreign languages? Give me a break. The underlying racist assumption is that all those Latino, Middle Eastern, and Asian folk aren't "real" Americans.