Disadvantage 4: I don't already speak Hebrew

.... or anything even remotely similar to it.

As Americans, our exposure to language is arguably both extremely high, and unnaturally low.

On the one hand, American news is very international. CNN and Fox and and the like (whatever your political views) cover all sorts of international stories and Americans arguably know more about international affairs than a lot of other nations. (There are certainly those people entirely ignorant of anything that doesn't happen in their county as well, but I feel our exposure to the world, primarily due to the prevalence of technology and media, is generally high). However, from a strictly linguistic standpoint, aside from those of us who are already multilingual, those of us who enjoy foreign films and those of us that like to travel, most peoples' exposure to truly foreign languages is low. I got back from Europe yesterday and listened to all sorts of people speaking in English: a Spaniard and a guy from Shanghai, a French stewardess and a Japanese passenger, etc. After exhausting my Italian conversation skills, which I was proud of, I ultimately had to revert to Chinese with some friends there that don't speak any English.

What I'm getting at is that the second-hand-smoke equivalent of our language encounters is generally Spanish. Unless you live in a large city and/or an area with a foreign community (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, etc) the general American populous (on average) would come into most contact with Spanish, even if we don't study it formally.

Also, from a linguistic perspective, German is easier to learn for an American than an Asian, and French is easier for an Italian than a Turk. This is because they're related. There's already that similarity that gives one a headstart. I already posted the "Hebrew isn't Spanish" bit, but the truth is, Hebrew is about as foreign a concept as I could get for a foreign language. It's as dissimilar to anything I speak or have studied as I could possibly think.

I'd like to think others' language ventures would be easier, or provide them with some head start. It's hard to avoid, actually, even in small ways. Look for it. It's helpful.