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Comment by pepinator | Hacker News Reader

> Your average European speaks at least three

ok ok I get the point but let's not exaggerate

It was edited to "average educated European", whatever that means.

But I think two languages is probably not exagerating. And not only in Europe. People have their native language and usually an international one (in Europe that would be English).

And then there are similar languages. Say a Spanish person will speak Spanish and English, and possibly French/Italian/Portuguese, so that quickly goes up to 3. Also in many countries there are already multiple languages (a portion of Spain speaks Catalan and Spanish as native languages, then probably English as international language, and they are probably not bad in French/Italian because of the similarity).

Same in the northern country that are all germanic languages: Swedish is pretty similar to Norwegian for instance, both are not too far to German, and everybody there speaks English fluently.

And then if you go in the Eastern Europe... like in Slovenia people seem to all speak 5 languages, it's insane :-).

I agree that a lot of people speak two languages. But man, I've lived in several countries in Europe for many years, and even the average university student doesn't really speak English (and I work at the university so I interact with many of them). Even in countries like Belgium where there're three official languages!

However, I'd agree with that the average educated person can somewhat communicate ideas in a second language. This is what polls usually show, around 30% to 50% of people.

> I've lived in several countries in Europe for many years, and even the average university student doesn't really speak English

Have you tried any Scandinavian country for instance?

no, but we're talking about Europe on general. and the initial claim is surely false in countries like Spain, France, Poland and Belgium

It has been edited to "average educated European". If going by tertiary education, that is about 30% to 35% of the European population. I wouldn't be surprised if that group speaks three languages. In Spain it is typical to speak three of Spanish, Catalan, Valencian, Galician, Basque, Portugese, Arabic, English. In The Netherlands basically anyone speaks Dutch and English plus a third language, usually Frisian, Limburgish, German, French, Spanish, Turkish or Arabic.

Two American tourists were backpacking in Europe when a car pulled up next to them. The driver rolled down his window and asked in german:” Where is the nearest diner?”

The two Americans, not knowing a fraction of German, stared blankly at the driver. “Sorry, but we have no idea what you are saying.”

The driver tried again in French and again was met with blank stares and shakes of the head from the two tourists.

Getting frustrated, he tried again in Italian, in Spanish, each time receiving nothing but sheepish smiles from the two of them. Finally, he cursed under his breath and drove away angrily.

The first American asked his partner:” Maybe we should learn a second language.” His partner shrugged and replied:” Why? That dude knew four languages and it didn’t help him.”

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