@eichoopanebre
I work for a company based in Germany and almost all of my colleagues speak English with some degree of competency and fluency. In our US and Canadian affiliates, combined, we have only a few people who can speak more than just English, In Canada one speaks German and other languages but she was born in Europe. Another speaks German because of German parentage and a few speak French due to being raised in Quebec.
In the US, only one speaks fluent German, two speak fluent Spanish as they are of Mexican heritage and I can stumble along in Spanish, French, German and Yiddish.
In Germany the children now start English classes at third or fourth grade and if they want Russian or French or Italian or Spanish, that is available later on in their schools.
My children had NO opportunity to start a foreign language in school until 9th grade. My daughter speaks German well enough that she was able to work for my employer in “Germany for a year and she was able to converse and correspond with German customers, not just English speakers. One of the other two is also terrific in German. The middle child just has no ear for foreigh language, at least not in an academic setting.
A shame. I started Spanish in 6th grade in New York City 45 years ago and continued with it for 7 years, I took French in college and German as an adult when I began working for my current employer. As I said, I stumble around in German and French but I still have the ability to understand some of what I hear and I don’t have to guess at what I might be ordering from a menu. It is a real advantage just to have some exposure.
If I were younger than 25 years of age, I would be learning Mandarin or Japanese or Spanish or Korean or Tagalog or maybe Arabic.
SRM