User talk:91.10.96.64

Every second german speaking english ?
Beeing an eastern european migrant living in Germany, i really doubt the Eurobarometer 2012 figures for this country. Like most of the migrants, i'm still having problems with the german language (a difficult one with complex grammar) when dealing with natives in my everyday life. I have never been asked to switch to english in return (which would be my expectation in order to ease the mutual undestanding) or vice versa - when i did that, the majority could not speak it at all, very few speaking it barely at basic level. It is rather a part of migrants (mostly from India and Africa) who speak it and a very small part of highly skilled native people( bankers, customer service for abroad, etc - the nature of their jobs obliges them to learn and speak other languages), but their share in the total population is statistically insignificant. Most of them don't, including the younger generations. In Germany there is still resistance/reluctance to adopt/accept things from abroad, there is some kind of mentality of this type: "It's nice, we respect this, but we will still do it our way, we are the landlords on our property" i.e. it is not in accordance with our values and way of thinking/living. They don't see it as "must", because it doesn't seem to fit into their german "way of life". With such a "high" speakers percentage (over 50 percent according to the eurobarometer) english would be probably the second official language in Germany, and i really doubt the ordinary german citizen would accept that, even as principle. Generally, the german speaking world has a different mentality than the anglo-saxon or latin one. I remember cases a couple of years ago at my workplace, a mid-sized company ("mittelstand", typically german and whose name is the owner's family name, something usual in the country) when they acquired new customers from abroad. They visited the factory, but none of the factory staff could speak english, not even those in the leading positions, so they brought a translator (unimaginable for me nowadays, in the "age of internet"). These Eurobarometer figures indicate rather the number of people who think they can speak english and are far from reality. A high openness/readiness to speak english is rather present in the Netherlands (personally heard from relatives living and having contacts with natives), scandinavian and eastern european countries. These countries have also television subtitles (unlike Germany, where programmes are dubbed) - this could be a factor of considerable influence in my opinion - probably has to do with the nation's mentality and culture. Being an eastern european, i find the Eurobarometer figures for these countries more realistic, despite the lower percentage, or to put it other way, the Germany's (and some western european countries') are much lower than those.