Do you speak English Live in Germany?  

SouthernLady 6/23/2009 3:32 pm	Do you speak English and live in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Europe?
madmatt 136 posts  6/26/2009 12:17 am	Hi, I live in Hamburg/Germany, I am German and do speak English too. But I have to say that in all-day-life we usually only speak German here. Also I have noticed that many people have very bad English knowledge. Although English is a main subject in schools, a lot of people cannot even understand simple sentences. Don´t know about the situation in Austria or Switzerland though. In France people do not want to speak English. In Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark I found out that it is no problem to communicate in English
dermalteser Ask me for a photo 4 posts  7/2/2009 5:07 am	Hi madmatt, I tend to disagree. I meet several germans as well as other europeans here in malta. On the whole germans speak good english especially young people. Of course, the dutch are in a class of their own but these people have always been merchantile. The french have their own culture. It was only after the advent of the USA as a world economic giant that english gained the edge over french. Otherwise francophones are much more sexier!
madmatt 136 posts  7/2/2009 11:14 pm	Hi Dermalteser, well, I partly disaggree with you. You are right when you say that Germans can speak English well. But those Germans you met in Malta. I say: Germans who travel usually speak better English than Germans who prefer to stay home or just go to Mallorca or Denmark and spend time only with their own countrymen. But those who are more open and travel to different countries just need to speak English. Otherwise they won´t get far in foreign countries. You have no idea how bad our education in Germany is. Many young people cannot even spell or speak a correct sentence. But those guys usually do not travel to places where they cannot understand German. It´s a "victory" for cellphones and emails: many do not even care about grammar or correct spelling anymore nowadays.