"El Maximo" wrote ...
"Mxsmanic" wrote...
El Maximo writes:

Not obvious to me. Every german I know speaks perfect english, although
with
an accent.

I hardly know any Germans who speak perfect English.

The fact that you hardly know them not surprising. The Germans I know are
also pretty bright, therefore they would steer clear of the likes of you.


As a group, I suspect that Scandinavians are more likely to be "effective"
English speakers than are Germans, and in my experience the Dutch are more
likely to be at least semi-fluent in English than are other nationalities.
Obviously, the English and US citizens (other than Hispanics) are among the
most likely to be mono-lingual. Were it not for tourism and commerce, I
have my doubts whether more than a half-dozen French residents would speak
English....

I'm fairly fluent in a brand of Spanish spoken in San Luis Potosi, Mexico,
before 1914, the place and time of origin of most of the early
Spanish-speaking residents of my home town, but likely to draw smiles in
Madrid. After a few days of stumbling, I can once more "get by" in a sort
of Italian quite understandable to Italians in Central and Southern Italy.
My French consists of long lost and hard to reclaim bits of a maritime and
littoral lingua franca, good at ship-chandlers, agents, port services, bars,
restaurants, hotels, transportation services and, I suppose, in the
occasional maison du tolerance. Vietnamese? Once terse, inadequate, and
minimally functional. Now, none of the above and any remaining much clouded
by the passage of time.

That's not much to be proud of, but a clear leg up on most of my US
contemporaries. My father who spoke fair Chinese would be proud of my
youngest daughter who speaks a barbarous brand of "Post Hole" TexMex, but
decent commercial Chinese (Mandarin?) for the marketplace in which she
works. She claims that her commercial contacts are more and more likely to
speak English.

TMO