As a fellow Austrian I have to strongly disagree. Outside of the frequently-english-using circle (higher management positions, software devs, language students

As a fellow Austrian I have to strongly disagree. Outside of the frequently-english-using circle (higher management positions, software devs, language students...), English proficiency is terrible. Generation 40+ more likely answers in French or Latin rather understand the difference between beef and pork. I'd place myself in the 90% percentile of fluency in English here, but as soon as a native speaker forgets I'm participating I understand jack shit. Nada. Instant game over. Grammar, vocab, pronounciation, emotional expression, speed, comprehension, etc. -- everything takes a 50% hit compared to German. My coworkers are from Austria, US, Slovenia, Serbia etc. -- often the only shared language is English. It makes meetings excrutiatingly slow and painful (non-fluent talking bringing back memories of 1st year elementary school reading). And that is the experience in an highly educated multinational team in the software industry. Calling it "best-case" would overstretch it (that still goes to EU interpreters meeting at lunch), but compared to large parts of the population... If that is "pretty good", what is "mediocre"? Or "bad"? The inability to say hello?