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Do people speak good English? How hard do you think it would be for a foreigner (not speaking German) to get around in Berlin?
by mcxx 18y ago
Do people speak good English? How hard do you think it would be for a foreigner (not speaking German) to get around in Berlin?
- bbb 18y agoIn the startup scene and among anyone with a technology-oriented college education, it won't be a problem at all. Almost all Germans learn some English in high school, and most retain enough to at least a have basic dialog. In short: working in the startup scene won't be a problem; grocery shopping might be an adventure. ;-)
- davidw 18y agoIn most major European cities, you can "get by" with English. The problem is that "getting by" is not that satisfying, and after a while you start wanting to be able to communicate in more meaningful ways, and the only way to do that is to either limit yourself to the people that speak English really well (which are fewer in number, and who, in any case, also have friends themselves who don't speak English so well), or learn the local language.
- DanielH 18y agoI think it's fairly easy to get around without speaking german. btw Berlin is great :)
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- albertsun 18y ago"Do people speak English well?" you mean. I normally wouldn't point it out, but given the context...
- helveticaman 18y agoI think "Do you speak good English?" is correct given that the adjective "good" indicates the quality of his English.
- mcxx 18y agoYup, this is what I had in mind.
- albertsun 18y agoSince I'm not a prescriptivist, I'll point out that there's a subtle difference of meaning between "speak good English" and "speak English well", and the meaning here is better reflected by the second phrase. Consider the similar phrase, "Did you eat good pie", versus "Did you eat pie well". In the pie case the former is correct because you're referring to the quality of the pie. In the case at hand, we're talking about the quality of the speaking.
- cperciva 18y agoYour example isn't quite the same, since the speaking is what creates the English. A better analogy would be "Do you bake good pies" vs. "Do you bake pies well" -- which don't mean quite the same thing, but they're pretty close.
- shiranaihito 18y agoYou probably had something like "Do people speak English good?" in mind.
- maryrosecook 18y agoI've been to Berlin several times. Most everyone I met spoke better English than I do. I asked some of them whether this is a common German trait and they said yes, but primarily amongst younger people.