I'll break my fast of not posting to say I can attest to the Netherlands being
a great place for English, especially compared to the other European
countries.
I'd like to say in an ideal situation everyone should both be looking out
for themselves and for others. This rarely happens in a perfect balance, but
it's only the extremes one needs to really worry about. And generally
speaking you will find that those that are doing well will have more time to
look about themselves than those that are not.
As an example, consider the Netherlands which does excedingly well. They
have (as a nation, sorry jcwren -- you can generalize :) ) the
time to learn English and Dutch and another language (as mentioned in
ML's post it's generally German or French). For Americans, I suppose you
could say we show our "well to do" by being very, er, "proactive" in worldwide
affairs (I don't exactly support all of this proaction :) ).
However, as mentioned, during economic crisis's Russia was not worried
about everyone else -- similarly during the depression American acted
similarly.
So anyway, to conclude: It would be nice if we could attain a balance
between minding our business as well as our neighbor's. But just try not to
be destructive, rather constructive when doing so.
Ciao,
Gryn
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