Inglese

You often hear that America influences Europe; “it’s a world power!” (for now). It was something I’d heard many times, but assumed this was due to wealth or political influence. But the dominance of America spreads far further than money or politics. It’s very hard to escape America in Europe!
For one, all the popular music is American. Kesha, Katy Perry, whatever--the pop music is American, and it dominated the airwaves. This occurs in every other country I’ve been to. I ask Italians why this is, and they say “Italian music is boring.” Europeans LOVE techno, any sort of dance music. America mass produces everything: hundreds of channels, dozens of musical genres, and our bands actually stay together long enough to produce multiple albums. Most famous Italian musicians are solo artists. It’s quite depressing, the lack of national pride. For once, our nation does something right: explosive growth of every genre.
MTV is literally the American shows and videos translated to Italian. Many american movies are dubbed and put on other channels. The cartoon channels are all mushed together into one. It’s weird, the blues brothers are everywhere: walls in restaurants, commercials…I don’t get it. The greatest part is that you watch your shows uninterrupted: commercial breaks are maybe every half hour, for like 6 minutes. I watched Harry Potter with 2 commercial breaks! So many times, the original show goes much faster, with less suspense! This also results in shows starting at the most random times: :35, :05, :20--why not!?
Besides mass entertainment, American citizens travel quite a bit. In Europe, traveling is quite common, but Americans love to do the most touristy things possible, and thus generate lots of revenue. Many stores have English menus, and most young people speak English. My favorite mistranslations are “scallops”--which is veal, “aubergines” which is supposedly eggplant, and “honey agarics” which is supposedly a mushroom.
Only the most touristy restaurants have menus in languages besides English and Italian. Instead of Spanish, like in America, the dominant second language is English. It’s always extremely interesting to hear two non-native English speakers conversing in English, with ridiculously different accents. It’s a really interesting bonding agent: on a train home, I was with two Palestine boys and an Italian man: the only language we shared was English (the Palestine boys also spoke Arabic and German, go figure). This happens surprisingly often, and I always find it beautiful to watch two people connect in foreign language.
It’s considered imprudent not to know any English, especially when Europe consists of so many small countries with their own language. Most people speak at least one other language (normally English), but many also learn some French and German. It’s quite impressive, but it explains why Europeans look down on Americans for not learning more languages: they need to do it for basic functioning! Europeans can change countries in a 5 hour drive, which only some Americans can do. In America, the only country nearby that doesn’t speak English is Mexico, and thus most Americans learn Spanish, and the second language of translation is always Spanish.
If you think about it, there’s much less motivation for English speakers to learn another language. Most Europeans don’t consider our physical condition, and how different it is when you’re not limited by the size of your country or your neighbors.