A language is a tool, not a nationality or a border.

Your average educated European speaks at least three, one of which is English because it is a good language to have because it is the language of international commerce. This has been the case since many decades and has nothing to do with using the language internally.

But: many people do use it internally. French tourists abroad are more likely to use English than French. European colleagues usually standardize on English, both for their communications as well as for their documentation needs.

Scientific literature is predominantly in English (at least, for now).

So there are many reasons to use English which have nothing to do with allegiance or dependence.

▲

pepinator 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Your average European speaks at least three

ok ok I get the point but let's not exaggerate

	▲	palata 5 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It was edited to "average educated European", whatever that means. But I think two languages is probably not exagerating. And not only in Europe. People have their native language and usually an international one (in Europe that would be English). And then there are similar languages. Say a Spanish person will speak Spanish and English, and possibly French/Italian/Portuguese, so that quickly goes up to 3. Also in many countries there are already multiple languages (a portion of Spain speaks Catalan and Spanish as native languages, then probably English as international language, and they are probably not bad in French/Italian because of the similarity). Same in the northern country that are all germanic languages: Swedish is pretty similar to Norwegian for instance, both are not too far to German, and everybody there speaks English fluently. And then if you go in the Eastern Europe... like in Slovenia people seem to all speak 5 languages, it's insane :-).
	▲	BeetleB 3 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Two American tourists were backpacking in Europe when a car pulled up next to them. The driver rolled down his window and asked in german:” Where is the nearest diner?” The two Americans, not knowing a fraction of German, stared blankly at the driver. “Sorry, but we have no idea what you are saying.” The driver tried again in French and again was met with blank stares and shakes of the head from the two tourists. Getting frustrated, he tried again in Italian, in Spanish, each time receiving nothing but sheepish smiles from the two of them. Finally, he cursed under his breath and drove away angrily. The first American asked his partner:” Maybe we should learn a second language.” His partner shrugged and replied:” Why? That dude knew four languages and it didn’t help him.”
	▲	retired an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It has been edited to "average educated European". If going by tertiary education, that is about 30% to 35% of the European population. I wouldn't be surprised if that group speaks three languages. In Spain it is typical to speak three of Spanish, Catalan, Valencian, Galician, Basque, Portugese, Arabic, English. In The Netherlands basically anyone speaks Dutch and English plus a third language, usually Frisian, Limburgish, German, French, Spanish, Turkish or Arabic.