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Originally posted by escorpio
O.K., Joe, I apologize for my presumption but I have never meet an Aussie on the road who wasn't accompanied by his mates from home. It's cool you enjoy solo travel also. I know a lot of people wouldn't consider it.
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Lot's of Australians travel alone, I certainly have.
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Can't help but meet other travelers that way.Australia matches the U.S. in size, but is it really as culturally diverse?
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There are significant regional differences, but they're not nearly as pronounced as in the US.
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A sincere question I have wondered about - Is bilingualism encouraged in Australia the way it is in Europe? Spanish is becoming a begrudging reality here in the U.S. esp. in the S.W. Being an isolated English speaking island is language education a "why bother?" or encouraged (like travel seems to be) as a way to experience culture?
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Multilingualism is encouraged, but the trick is which other language/s do you learn? And when will you get an opportunity to speak them? For example, I learned German at school but haven't spoken it in more than a decade. Australia has immigrants from a vast variety of countries, so there are wide variety of cultural influences and many people are multi-lingual, but English is the only language that's universal.