Not to belittle the man's other achievements but speaking four languages is pretty normal in Europe, except when you're from the UK.
Northern Europe, maybe. French people for instance tend to suck at foreign languages. We rarely go beyond 3 languages (French, English, then German or Spanish. The last two are often forgotten after school.)
I suspect Spain and Italy are similar.
It's hard to find more data beyond my anecdata -- an EdWeek article I found reported that less than 50% of schools report world language enrollment data.
Also, the Europeans who learn three or four languages in school also have the luxury to learn those languages for free* through public schooling, so I'm not sure I understand your point.
I am sure that your implication that every American kid can get a quality free foreign language skill in school is false: just like almost every single other educational outcome in the US, it's generally great in the good (wealthy, suburban) schools and terrible in the bad (poor, rural or urban) schools.
Some of that is the accident of geography: it simply wasn't necessary. Today, we are more connected to our Spanish-speaking neighbors, and the value of learning that language is becoming increasingly obvious. I don't know whether the schools are doing a better job of stressing that than they did when I was in school.
I have indeed chosen to learn other languages, several of them. I wish I'd done it in school, at a time when my brain was more open to it. Unfortunately, that was also a time when I didn't know very much and put my priority on other things that ended up making less of a difference in my life.
I thought it was somewhat delayed, not paid, yet.
The surprising thing for me is Germany having 2. Seems unlikely.
Germany is big. I've heard that the proficiency in foreign languages tends to decrease as your country gets bigger. Because the bigger the country, the less likely you are to interact with foreign languages. Bigger countries also tend to have foreign works translated (or dubbed) into their own language more often.
So, no, I'm not surprised.
But they need to be able to get citizenship afaik... So basically everyone can speak two languages on paper, though their knowledge of the native one is extremely rudimentary
You're also required to learn 2 foreign languages in school if you want to go to university
I recall something like a 2.2 average.
Clearly we have different experiences (swedish person living in spain currently) but I haven't met that many people who speak four languages and are from a european country (but have yet to been in eastern europe).
That finns speak swedish is a special case though, as AFAIK, they learn swedish in school and being finn-swedish is a thing too.
Our solo flute speaks a whopping 6 languages well, and I suspect our harp player knows even more.
Nordic countries are a special case.
Norden er et spesielt tilfelle.
Norden är ett speciellt fall.
Norden er et specielt tilfælde.
Average number of languages spoken: France: 1.8 , Germany: 2.0 , Spain: 1.7 , Portugal: 1.6 , Italy: 1.8 , Greece: 1.8 , Poland: 1.8 , Sweden: 2.5 , Finland: 2.6 , UK: 1.6
I rarely met someone who could speak four languages fluently.
French people can usually speak basic English, and a third language is common if that person has ties with another country but that's it. At school, we are normally taught two foreign languages. The first one is usually English, few people actually practice their second one.
The situation is completely different in Scandinavian countries. And it is indeed quite normal to speak 4 languages in Finland (usually Finnish, Swedish, English and a 4th one, often German). Because their native language is only spoken by a few, foreign languages are a necessity for international relationships. And as a Finnish friend told me, learning new languages is a popular way to pass time during long winter nights.
It's not normal.