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Comment by mcxx | Hacker News Reader

Do people speak good English? How hard do you think it would be for a foreigner (not speaking German) to get around in Berlin?

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"Do people speak English well?" you mean. I normally wouldn't point it out, but given the context...

I think "Do you speak good English?" is correct given that the adjective "good" indicates the quality of his English.

Yup, this is what I had in mind.

Since I'm not a prescriptivist, I'll point out that there's a subtle difference of meaning between "speak good English" and "speak English well", and the meaning here is better reflected by the second phrase.

Consider the similar phrase, "Did you eat good pie", versus "Did you eat pie well". In the pie case the former is correct because you're referring to the quality of the pie. In the case at hand, we're talking about the quality of the speaking.

Your example isn't quite the same, since the speaking is what creates the English. A better analogy would be "Do you bake good pies" vs. "Do you bake pies well" -- which don't mean quite the same thing, but they're pretty close.

You probably had something like "Do people speak English good?" in mind.

In the startup scene and among anyone with a technology-oriented college education, it won't be a problem at all. Almost all Germans learn some English in high school, and most retain enough to at least a have basic dialog.

In short: working in the startup scene won't be a problem; grocery shopping might be an adventure. ;-)

In most major European cities, you can "get by" with English. The problem is that "getting by" is not that satisfying, and after a while you start wanting to be able to communicate in more meaningful ways, and the only way to do that is to either limit yourself to the people that speak English really well (which are fewer in number, and who, in any case, also have friends themselves who don't speak English so well), or learn the local language.

I've been to Berlin several times. Most everyone I met spoke better English than I do. I asked some of them whether this is a common German trait and they said yes, but primarily amongst younger people.

I think it's fairly easy to get around without speaking german. btw Berlin is great :)

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