CHAT Euro-matters (was: HUMOUR: "EuroEnglish": is this forreal???)

Raymond Brown wrote:

<snip>

> Oh yes, on the continent of Europe there are far more speakers of German
> than of either English or French.  And IIRC Russian is the most widely
> spoken language - tho this figure may have included L2 speakers who have
> been declining in numbers since the fall of the Soviet Empire; and, of
> course, Russian speaking areas are still outside of the EU.
>
> But, of course, originally, Austria, Switzerland & eastern Germany were not
> part of the EU - Switzerland still isn't. But I must confess I was somewhat
> surprised when I learnt that the working languages were English & French.
> I had assumed German would also be one.  I guess, however, there are two
> factors which led the Germans to go along with this: (a) so many of them
> speak very good English (not at all like the silly caricatures still, alas,
> perpetuated by some), and (b) they didn't want to appear to be dominating
> the EU.
>
With regards to (a), when I was in German this summer (unfortunately
only for 5 or 6 days), I was quite surprised by this. I had expected to
be forced to resort to my shoddy grade 10 German far more often then I
had to - almost everyone there spoke very good English, and anytime I
met someone who didn't, there was almost always someone within hearing
distance who would help me out with my German or them out with their
English. Also, many times, when speaking English, their accent was not
distinctly German - had I not been in Germany, I might have written it
off as some sort of British accent.

--
Robert