You would be surprised at how many germans refuse to read/write english. They get everything dubbed on TV since ages and almost all games comes out with a german version. But this berlin hacker news is only accepting english submissions so it's a moot point anyway. Just ignore me :-)

The fact that TV overdubs movies (with like 5 voice actors for all the movies collectively) belies the fact that most Germans speak English and understand it just fine.

I have lots of contact with Germany, go there frequently and speak passable German but when I have people with me that don't this is never a problem and not because I'm translating.

The Germans that don't speak English are usually either quite old or are from rural areas. City and < 60: you can basically assume they speak English, and if you try German first they'll switch to English if you can't find your words unprompted.

This goes for most of Europe by the way.

I too spend a lot of time in Germany and with german contacts over the net. Most of the techie contacts I have through work understands english fine and also write and speak good english. The people I meet socially and in stores are a completely different topic. They have no reason to learn english because they have no contact what so ever with the language.

Ten years ago you would be hard pressed to find youth that would speak english but because of internet I guess that has changed. I don't have so much contact with people below 25 any more.

I assume this is also very different depending on area and your social level in society :-)

Yes but you are talking about TV, games and so on. I'm sure that hackers have much propension to read/write English, than common people.

This is no joke, we use to get German TV here in The Netherlands. I always found it amusing to watch the A-Team dubbed in German.

You should try to watch How I Met Your Mother in german, that is so weird, but quite hilarious.

Well, our Bruce Willis voice makes up for a lot. :)