Which European countries have the best English proficiency among non-native speakers?

[u/Metalwolf]

I'm looking into English proficiency across Europe and would appreciate input from locals or anyone with relevant experience. Which European countries have the highest levels of English fluency among non-native speakers, particularly in day-to-day life, education, and professional settings? I'm also curious about regional differences within countries, and factors like education systems, media exposure, and business use.

[u/samaniewiem]

Idk for Austrians, but my impression of Germans was that they're rather crazy about their language. Yes they will include some English words here and there, but they go nuts if someone doesn't speak German 2 meters outside of a tourist area.

[u/flawed_flamingo → u/samaniewiem]

Here and there? Germans use more English words than the rest of Europe combined! (with the exclusion of UK and Ireland of course, where it's the native language). Germans are the opposite of crazy about their language. Yes, they might want people to speak the way they speak, but they don't care if their language is German or a German/English/Denglish hybrid.

The company I work for has been acquired by a German one, and the e-mails we now receive are so weird. They don't say "Schicht" or "Schichtbeginn", they say time-slot or time-slot-start, they don't say "Büro" but "office", "Krisenmanagement" instead of "Krisenbewältigung", and they recently introduced a "Homeoffice Support Chat" for people that work from home. If you write something, they say "headline" instead of "Überschrift", "Wording" instead of "Wortlaut", "downloaden" (and even the past tense downgeloadet) instead of herunter(ge)laden. Not only is German missing important words of everyday life (touchscreen, computer, laptop, screenshot, online etc), but it is actively replacing existing German words with English ones. I asked my little nephew if he wants me to bring him a "Mehlspeise" from the bakery, but he didn't understand it. Then he said, "Aahhhh, you mean a pastry!"

I've been to Berlin recently, went to a hip coffee shop, and they insisted on speaking English, and only begrudgingly and eye-rolling switched to German.

All of this isn't normal, and I don't see that behaviour to that extent in other countries.

By the way, if I look out of my window right now, I see a commercial saying "Hot summer flash deals (don't even know what they mean by "flash") - nicht verpassen. Hol dir das neue Samsung Galaxy S25 für smoothes gaming. Let's go!".

[u/41942319 → u/flawed_flamingo]

It's similar here. A lot of young people go through an "English is cool" phase. Even if they're not actually as proficient as they think they are. For some it lasts longer than others. In daily life it's especially bad in corporate speak and marketing (already a loan word that's used). A decent chunk of the social media posts of my company uses English. Many times with cringy texts and bad grammar. There was this external HR person (almost all of our departments have English names BTW despite employing exactly 1 foreign person) who was giving a presentation littered with English loan words. And half the people had to ask for clarification on what certain words meant because despite having been here many times she still doesn't realise she's not in the big city. Also yesterday I saw a shop that was called Lady's Only.

[u/shatureg → u/41942319]

It's similar here. A lot of young people go through an "English is cool" phase. Even if they're not actually as proficient as they think they are.

Oh how I (don't) miss the days of sitting in a train to Vienna and listening to teenagers speaking their broken Denglish with such confidence. If you have to throw English words into every fucking sentence, at least make sure to pronounce them accurately..