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So why do you make such an absurd claim?
Common would be that most Europeans speak their own mother tongue (and possibly a dialect thereof) plus - to very different degrees - the English language.
I did learn English and French at school besides Latin, and some Spanish, Italian and Swedish later on in life, but I would never claim that I speak more than German and English.
People that speak more than two languages are rare, and people that can make a proper conversation with a native english speaker are not that common at all.
North of Europe is impressive in english (I was amazed by skills of Norwegians/Finnish, I guess the same in Netherland, Denmark, Sweden, UK (lol ), but rest of Europe hell no...
Usually it's, like people said before, language of parents when they are immigrants, language of the country where they live and a very average english.
So why do you make such an absurd claim?
Common would be that most Europeans speak their own mother tongue (and possibly a dialect thereof) plus - to very different degrees - the English language.
I did learn English and French at school besides Latin, and some Spanish, Italian and Swedish later on in life, but I would never claim that I speak more than German and English.
Perhaps I phrased it incorrectly. Speaking 4/5 languages isn't the norm, it certainly isn't unheard of. I don't know why you're getting offended by someone advertising how adept many Europeans are at linguistics. I've met many people who can effortlessly switch between that many languages. Perhaps it's an upper class thing?
Yeah, I would say europeans tend to speak 2 or 3 languages, one of them usually being English.
I can speak fluently 3 languages, and I have some basic knowledge of another language.
I also know plenty of people who only speak their native tongue and have some basic knowledge of another one, and sometimes super basic. Including younger people.
The people I know who speak like 6 languages are usually immigrants from Africa or Asia.
I am an Italian teacher for immigrants. Once I met that dude who was from Pakistan, who wanted to follow italian lessons. He made it clear that he did not speak Italian, so he asked me if I spoke Spanish. I replied I didn't. He actually spoke German. So we spoke in German ! He also talked in Turkish with kurdish people and greek with an erasmus greek student. He basically spoke Urdu, Turkish, English, German, Spanish and Greek. II thought he was more European than any of us Europeans.
The languages he spoke were the languages he had learnt while travelling to reach Europe, sometimes staying a few years in a country before being able to emigrate.
^ dominating as a second language, that's all. It is different from saying "English dominate all these countries”.
Additionally, being the dominating foreign language doesn't really mean most people in those countries can speak it. In China for example, I would be surprised if more than 5% of the population can carry a conversation in English.
^ dominating as a second language, that's all. It is different from saying "English dominate all these countries”.
Additionally, being the dominating foreign language doesn't really mean most people in those countries can speak it. In China for example, I would be surprised if more than 5% of the population can carry a conversation in English.
No sh*t! What do you want as a price of this massive revelation which probably took hours for you to figure out? A biscuit?
I actually speak Italian with that American student mentioned earlier.
"So you did not know any Italian when you arrive here ? How did you learn it so well ?"
"None of my Italian roommates speak English"
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