> the fact that this isn't even surprising is one of the things that I dislike about being a native English speaker. It's just too easy to get away with not lea

> the fact that this isn't even surprising is one of the things that I dislike about being a native English speaker. It's just too easy to get away with not learning the language somewhere. I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it's certainly a valid observation. I lived in Japan for a while (and now have a reasonable level of sufficiency). Even though Japanese is about as different a language from English as you can find, these days, it's pretty easy to get by in Japan without learning the language at all. The locals will routinely "English" you, based only upon appearance [1], and pretty much everything of importance to daily life is subtitled in English as well. You can live a pretty comfortable life without any level of Japanese fluency, and you meet tons of expats who never bother, or who have atrocious language skills even after years of living there. On the other hand, despite the incentive structure, learning the language isn't really harder because of any of this. If you want to learn, you will find a way to associate with Japanese people, read Japanese, listen to Japanese, and so on. You're living in Japan. It's trivial to immerse yourself, if you choose to do so. Anyway, my point is that language learning is pretty much always about motivation, and maybe a bit of shamelessness. If you don't want to do the work, or you're too "shy", or uncomfortable, embarrassed, or whatever else, you won't learn, even if you live in the country and you're surrounded by people speaking it every day. Ultimately, the "I speak English, so it's harder for me" thing is just another excuse. Yoda said it best: Do or do not. There is no try. [1] White people speak English, according to the Japanese mindset. Sometimes, even if you are speaking to them in fluent Japanese.