Americans are in awe of people who can speak more than one language. When my polyglottery comes up, everybody immediately begins to react like I walk on water. This makes me feel very shy. To me, moving between languages is normal. I’ve never lived in any other way. When others start treating me like some sort of royalty for something that I do as easily as breathing, I feel self-conscious.
Of course, it’s very endearing. Whenever somebody meets me for the first time and finds out about the languages, they start announcing me to other people like I’m the 7th wonder of the world. Like, they are so happy to have uncovered this wonderful phenomenon that they can’t wait to share with others. Embarrassing. Sweet, lovely, but embarrassing.
As for learning languages, I don’t see any differences in my American and my European students. Among colleagues, Germans speak amazing Spanish. Brits are downright terrible. I am talking about Hispanists, people whose profession is the study of Hispanic literature and culture. There are exceptions, of course. Here I’m speaking in generalities. The French are not as bad as the Brits, but pretty bad. Italians are, as a rule, very good, but not nearly as amazing at speaking Spanish as German colleagues. The German-speaking Swiss are also great. As I keep saying, there is an affinity here, the nature of which I do not fully understand.
What I said above, however, only has to do with the actual quality of speaking the language. In terms of producing interesting ideas in the field of Hispanic studies, British scholars are about a hundred light years ahead of the Germans.
Going back to what I was actually asked, I see no differences in teaching Americans or Europeans. They’re equally great.
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