Bingo, while the affinity that the local language has with English grammar and how hard foreign languages are pushed at school are contributors, this is the main one.
This is why relatively uneducated people in the Netherlands and north of it are all fluent in English, and why Italians, Spanish and French are not. I Grew up with all Hollywood movie dubbed and in general Italian television in the 80s and 90s was 100% in Italian, didn’t do me any favour.
It’s changing, and kids now rely less on TV and more on the internet.
Anedoctally,I’ve been bitching about the French for a very long time, like in the meme, but in my last few visits to France in the last decade or so I had no issue interacting in English everywhere (used to be fluent in French but no more)
Bingo, while the affinity that the local language has with English grammar and how hard foreign languages are pushed at school are contributors, this is the main one. This is why relatively uneducated people in the Netherlands and north of it are all fluent in English, and why Italians, Spanish and French are not. I Grew up with all Hollywood movie dubbed and in general Italian television in the 80s and 90s was 100% in Italian, didn’t do me any favour. It’s changing, and kids now rely less on TV and more on the internet.
Anedoctally,I’ve been bitching about the French for a very long time, like in the meme, but in my last few visits to France in the last decade or so I had no issue interacting in English everywhere (used to be fluent in French but no more)