@ner3y My German is abysmal, but most Germans took pity on me and spoke English. When my sister lived there, and her son went to German school, they were teaching multiple languages and kids could choose one other, but English was mandatory. (This was easily 30 years ago, and things may have changed.)
My experiences traveling around Europe lead me to believe that most Europeans leave school multilingual.
@MissConstrue @ner3y That is still the case, English is still mandatory. If you want to get your qualification to go to university you also need to learn a second foreign language, in most cases French, Spanish or even Latin.
@sebachan @MissConstrue That was meant to be more of a humorous lurid statement that AfD supporters certainly don't know English. You couldn't read that very well from my sentence. Sorry. :)
@ner3y @MissConstrue Oh, I got that, no problem, I am wondering that myself 😄
I just wanted to give an update on the current education system to @MissConstrue
@sebachan @ner3y One sister did French, one did German, I did Latin. So, while my pronunciation of everything is suspect, I can almost always read, for a given value, most languages evolved from the Indo-European tree. But I struggle trying to speak most languages, and I’ve found that usually people take pity because they can see I’m trying, but hopeless. 🤦♀️🤷🏻♀️.
I’ve been told I speak Dutch with a German accent, and I don’t know how. I speak Spanish with a TexMex accent, so I’m good in the southwest, but Cubans and Puerto Ricans just look confused. I don’t even try French because it makes French people cry when I do. (Como tally voo, y’all!)