[cripplecreek]

Many Americans don’t live anywhere near a border where they’ll encounter foreign speakers.

I live near the Canadian border and speak fluent Canadian.

[driftless2]

"fluent Canadian"

Been to Canada a number of times in a number of different places and have rarely heard the stereotypical Bob and Doug McKenzie Canuck speak.

In Brandon, Manitoba one time a friendly gas station attendant was talking to us in that kind of speech, and I wondered if he wasn't putting us on.

[American Constitutionalist]

Went down to Key west Florida on vacation long time ago, turned the radio on and heard Cuban music from Cuba on the radio.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Not long ago, when les Québécois were consumed by the language-rights issue, anyone with American plates on his car could always get service in English. Meanwhile, outside of Montréal, Anglophone Canadians never seemed to meet a bilingual Québécois. You needed to speak la belle langue -- and smatterings of high-school French often weren't good enough.