From my experience, English has been mostly useless in these countries as far back as I can remember. Even in touristy Paris, there are plenty of places where n

From my experience, English has been mostly useless in these countries as far back as I can remember. Even in touristy Paris, there are plenty of places where nobody speaks a word of English and this gets even 'worse' when you venture outside of cities. I'm from the country with the highest English proficiency (Netherlands), so I'm used to everyone speaking English. The benefit of this though, is that I can do basic stuff, like ordering coffee, in about 6 languages. I wonder, though, whether the conclusion from the data is correct. It could be that more people are getting access to the internet, so even people who didn't have a reason to learn English half a decade ago are now looking for courses online.