Don't take this wrong, but...
Q. What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
A. Trilingual.
Q. What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A. Bilingual.
Q. What do you call someone who speaks one language?
A. American.
I'm ahead of the general curve for Americans since I speak 1.2 languages (including a bit of Spanish and a tinier bit of Italian). Or maybe I should make that 1.3 languages, since I grew up in Texas and still speak Texan fluently, y'all.
(A side note, we met so many Irishmen -- and women -- on the Camino that my wife said she was dreaming with an Irish lilt.)
But to get serious, we Americans are generally language-lazy; probably because English has become the most common second language for much of the non-anglophone world, at least for travel and business. You'd think that as an immigrant nation, we'd all still be speaking at least a little of our grandparents' tongue, but I guess the first-generation immigrants felt it important for their children to speak the common language of the land. It's been my observation that the second generation generally spoke the language of the old country plus fluent English, still maintained many (if not most) of the customs of their parents' nation of origin, and even tended to marry within their own national or ethnic groups. But by the third generation, they were fully Americanized and integrated within the great melting pot -- clinging to a few old customs, but otherwise intermarrying at will and generally becoming mono-lingual. For example, both sets of my wife's grandparents came from Italy in the 1880's; her parents and their generation spoke English very fluently and still spoke Italian among themselves. But they did not teach my wife's generation Italian at all.
My own ancestors came primarily from England (mid-1700's), Ireland (1840's), and Germany (1850's). I can still remember going to family reunions as a small child where some of the older folks spoke German, but my own experience was that I only heard English spoken otherwise. Taking a second language was still a requirement in our public schools when I grew up in the 1950's, and was an entry requirement for many colleges and universities. Because I was in Texas, which bordered Mexico and had a large Latin-American population, I chose Spanish as my second language course. But I never really learned to speak Spanish fluently, just enough to get by when traveling in Mexico on vacations, and of course more recently on the Camino. When I travel abroad, I try to learn a few basic words and phases in the local language, which I promptly forget when I get back home. I only learned a bit more Italian because of my wife's family connection when we visited her relatives in Italy a few years ago.
SY
but that could initiate divorce proceedings by the Camino widow. 
