Nothing to do with your comment, but as happy as I am that comment likes are now a thing, I'm sad that only comments on new quizzes will ever get likes. Kalbahamut had some great ones I'd "like" to find and "like".
I am continually amazed at the abilities of some Nations to speak other languages, I have Dutch and German friends that speak English as well as any English people, better than some. Not just correct, but using regional jargon as well.
If you are surrounded by countries that speak different languages, you tend to have the language taught to you in school. The ad-
vantage (or, in reality, the disadvantage) of being born in the United States is that we are surrounded by "countries" (read states) that
speak English. Even so, some states are advanced enough to require the teaching of foreign languages in their High School and Colleges/Universities.
I think there's also a significant difference between countries whose dominant languages aren't usually dubbed over English-language tv and movies. Dubbing does nothing to teach language; subtitling does lots.
As for Germany pretty much everything is dubbed. I like to watch movies in English though (if that's the original language of the movie) because it feels more authentic to me. This and chatting with foreigners in English probably improved my English. I mean I wasn't bad at school but learning or improving a language through something you enjoy is way easier and more efficient.
We had to take a foreign language in my high school back in the '60s, and I took two years of Spanish. However, I can remember very little of it now. Even my daughter who majored in French, did study abroad in France, and has vacationed there more than once now has trouble remembering the language. I have a friend who grew up in Germany but has been in the US over twenty years. She says she is losing some of her native language. I think with language it holds true, "Use it or lose it."
After my first 30 years in Germany, I've been living the last 12 years or so in the UK. Luckily I still have a habit of talking to myself a lot in my native language, so I never forget it. :)
I work internationally on a fairly constant basis. My experience is consistent with these statistics, although it is hard for me to imagine who the 10% of Dutch are who are not English proficient. Damn near 100%, if you ask me. And much higher in Germany and Austria. Yes, I have observers' bias, because I generally am in contact with other businesspeople or folks at airports/restaurants/hotels or other service providers that generally will have contact with English speakers. But, pretty much, English is so invasive due to the cultural impact of the US, even those who are not 'proficient' have a decent working knowledge.
I dont think it has that much to do with the us at all. My contact with the english language has mainly come from books, and later on having the television on the bbc channel (I never have the tv on any of the national channels, it is either bbc, discovery, or national geographic, and when we still received it, animal planet). So I dont see where the us comes into that.
ok if you watch movies a lot, I suppose the biggest share of those comes from the us.
If there are any Welsh people who can't speak English, the numbers must be in the double figures at most. I was born in Wales and spent the first 21 years of my life there, but have never met anybody who can only speak Welsh.
Don't forget Scottish Gaelic - although admittedly, if you know Scottish Gaelic but don't know English and you live in the U.K., you're not going to fare too well.
I met one Welsh person who couldn't speak English, and that was in 1995 and she was very old at that point. She was a rarity even then. I seriously doubt there is more than a handful of monoglot Welsh speakers these days, if any at all.
It's pretty much a daily occurrence that I meet someone unable to speak English in London, whether in a Korean shop, Indian shop or someone just on the streets. It personally doesn't bother me though, I'll be leaving the UK for a country where I barely speak the language so I can't exactly by a hypocrite about it.
Would really love to see the figures for the microstates: Monaco, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San Marino, and the Vatican (all 600 priests that live there or whatever). Kinda surprised none of them made the list.
Depends on where you go in the countries you visit. In the major cities the inhabitants speak English (even in France where they pretend not to, perhaps because they take such pleasure in making fun of Americans' attempt to speak French, that they fear the same treatment from Americans when they attempt English) but in rural areas most of the inhabitants speak some form of their native language.
ok if you watch movies a lot, I suppose the biggest share of those comes from the us.