As an American, I will comment as my personal experience allows. Many Americans I run into speak a bit of Spanish do to the great of Hispanic workers they come into contact with. I know a number of Americans who dabble in a foreign language because of personal/business contact or interest in that country. Mostly, we have very little contact with speakers of other languages, and little need to converse outside of English. We have the largest economy and the 3rd largest population, with many other nations speaking English as a primary or secondary language. United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, Hong Kong, etc.

Everyone I know thinks its pretty cool to be able to communicate in another language, but with little need, not a lot of people do. One other complication for Americans is that any other language we spoke, would be understood by far fewer people than those who know English. Our neighbors speak Spanish, French, Japanese, (Mandarin and Cantonese)Chinese, and English. Our official language was English over German by one vote long ago.

I must admit, that I am quite releived that Europe and Japan have enough interest in English speaking nations that they do dabble or are fluent in English. I have tried languages myself, and after the attempts, consider myself lucky to get any point across in English.