Are Germans good speakers of English?

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thumberlina

In East Germany, where I live - not really...there is still a large Russian speaking community.

In west Germany...yes, they may be too scared to use it - but will understand and try ..

stehova

Depends on where you are. In most major cities that have more tourists, you will find many Germans speak English. As you move further out into the countryside and there is less of a need for them to speak it, you will see less of it. Still, getting around Germany is pretty easy if you only speak English.

Paris Hilton

Yes most the ones I have run into...even the ones that don't you can have fun with by combining your tourist German with their tourist English...You can figure it out...there are a lot of common cognates...(words which are the same or similar)...They love to practice their English and I love to practice my German (which seems to disappear quickly as soon as you are not there anymore)....

The Oak

Anglo-Saxon seems to me to be right in the middle of the German and English languages. So they are very close phonetically. This means that Germans who can speak English usually do so in a way that is comfortable for English people to understand. Though it does tend to come with a teensy-weensy bit of an accent.

MINDY

Yes, I believe so. I have worked w/international customers for over 20 years and the German's speak very well English, in fact probably the best vs. French, S. Americans I deal with although their's isn't that bad either.

My Peter is two!

I took German for 5 years and let me tell you, if they can speak that language they can speak anything! German is a very hard language to speak, there are so many rules. People perceive that German's do not speak our language well because they substitute certain sounds for letters. Example, a w is sometimes said as v.