> speaking four languages is pretty normal in Europe
Northern Europe, maybe. French people for instance tend to suck at foreign languages. We rarely go beyond 3 languages (French, English, then German or Spanish. The last two are often forgotten after school.)
While Italy, France and Spain are pretty much tied in their English proficiency (Spain might be ahead, but not significantly like Portugal), there are 4 official languages in Spain, and several regions where pretty much everyone is bilingual.
> The surprising thing for me is Germany having 2. Seems unlikely.
Germany is big. I've heard that the proficiency in foreign languages tends to decrease as your country gets bigger. Because the bigger the country, the less likely you are to interact with foreign languages. Bigger countries also tend to have foreign works translated (or dubbed) into their own language more often.
At least a quarter of my city barely speaks german.
But they need to be able to get citizenship afaik... So basically everyone can speak two languages on paper, though their knowledge of the native one is extremely rudimentary
You're also required to learn 2 foreign languages in school if you want to go to university
Nothing to do with being American, since you're afforded the luxury to learn other languages for free through public schooling. If anything, bang your head because you chose not to.
The offer is made, but the reason for doing so isn't made clear. I didn't understand it at the time; I availed myself of it in a minimal way. Most don't do that.
Some of that is the accident of geography: it simply wasn't necessary. Today, we are more connected to our Spanish-speaking neighbors, and the value of learning that language is becoming increasingly obvious. I don't know whether the schools are doing a better job of stressing that than they did when I was in school.
I have indeed chosen to learn other languages, several of them. I wish I'd done it in school, at a time when my brain was more open to it. Unfortunately, that was also a time when I didn't know very much and put my priority on other things that ended up making less of a difference in my life.
It's a myth that you learn languages easier earlier in life. Mastering a language takes about 10 years, it's just that when you start at age 6, you could be done by age 16.
Speaking as an American who speaks a handful of languages, very few Americans achieve any proficiency with foreign languages based on school from public school classes. Indeed I'm willing to take to zero those that don't have an active speaking component (most).
Eh, not for many, many Americans. My school, and most of the schools in my county, offered only Spanish and my understanding is that four years of it still wouldn't qualify a person for AP credit.
It's hard to find more data beyond my anecdata -- an EdWeek article I found reported that less than 50% of schools report world language enrollment data.
Also, the Europeans who learn three or four languages in school also have the luxury to learn those languages for free* through public schooling, so I'm not sure I understand your point.
I am sure that your implication that every American kid can get a quality free foreign language skill in school is false: just like almost every single other educational outcome in the US, it's generally great in the good (wealthy, suburban) schools and terrible in the bad (poor, rural or urban) schools.
Public schooling is a waste of time and not where people learn foreign languages. I learned my second and third language purely through the Internet. One of them I also had in school, but like I said it was a waste of time. The method is just completely wrong, since in school they do the two things that are the most detrimental to learning a foreign language. Those two things are correcting mistakes (since the emphasis will be on the mistake, which will be remembered) and learning grammar. Grammar is useless overhead when learning. Once you know the language you can bother with grammar, if you care. I never did.
> speaking four languages is pretty normal in Europe
Clearly we have different experiences (swedish person living in spain currently) but I haven't met that many people who speak four languages and are from a european country (but have yet to been in eastern europe).
That finns speak swedish is a special case though, as AFAIK, they learn swedish in school and being finn-swedish is a thing too.
I am a classical musician, and in my profession it is quite common. I speak a lowly 3 languages, but many colleagues speak 4+. It is a very international market, and if you leave your home country to study, it is not uncommon to work in yet another country before returning home.
Our solo flute speaks a whopping 6 languages well, and I suspect our harp player knows even more.
In Iceland it's pretty normal. We know Icelandic (ofc.) and learn English, one Scandinavian language (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish), then at 15 one of German, French, Italian or Spanish. We are on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. I'd expect more linguistic pluralities on the mainland.
I feel that's a bit of an overstatement, having studied them a bit is one thing, but most people here cannot comfortably communicate at all in Danish or a 4th language, and cannot read a book in these languages.
Being Swedish I bet you at minimum can understand and communicate proficiently with speakers and writers of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and English. Probably you learned either Spanish, French, or German in school as well?
I am on holiday in Norway right now and have been super impressed by the english fluency of most people I have spoken with. It goes far beyond basic conversational fluency.
Getting in touch with two foreign languages in school is not uncommon, but speaking up to four (including your mother tongue) with any sort of sophistication definitely is not normal, at least in western Europe.
Not uncommon in Scandinavia, if you know one of the languages you can learn the other easily. Some people from Finland have swedish and finnish as their mother tounge, the german most likely came from upper secondary school, together with english.
As a Swede I have little issue understanding Norwegian, but I would absolutely not claim I speak it. Yes, the languages are similar enough that we can understand each other, but no Scandinavian will be able to speak another Scandinavian language without practice as there are many differences.
No it's not, what are you talking about? I've met thousands of young Europeans and ones that speak 4 languages are extremely rare. Unless they're from countries where they get 2 languages "for free" like Holland/Belgium/Switzerland. Definitely not "pretty normal".
I am swiss and the only Languages I speak are German and english. I should have learned french as well (and had it for a few years in school), but things tend to not stick if you're beeing forced to learn it against your will.
French people can usually speak basic English, and a third language is common if that person has ties with another country but that's it. At school, we are normally taught two foreign languages. The first one is usually English, few people actually practice their second one.
The situation is completely different in Scandinavian countries. And it is indeed quite normal to speak 4 languages in Finland (usually Finnish, Swedish, English and a 4th one, often German). Because their native language is only spoken by a few, foreign languages are a necessity for international relationships. And as a Finnish friend told me, learning new languages is a popular way to pass time during long winter nights.
If you want to keep your conversation private it is not enough to choose a rare language in Berlin. There is always somebody who understands what you are saying.
