English Proficiency Index: Danes are the best non-native English-speakers

[Tender Branson]

Thank goodness we are not all too far behind:



http://www.thelocal.dk/20141112/danes-the-best-non-native-english-speakers-in-the-world

Full report with country details:

http://www.ef.co.uk/epi

Interesting finding:

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Correlates with the % of Austrian females and males voting FPÖ ...

[Tender Branson]

France's result is quite poor...is English not part of the school curriculum there?

Also, all of their English-language telly gets dubbed into French; subtitled TV is a big way to learn English and also acquire an American accent when using it.

Austrian TV also dubs all English shows or movies to German (as well as TV stations in Germany and Switzerland).

But the ORF (and the ARD/ZDF and SRF) usually send an additional, original English audio track with it.

For example if you watch a new English-speaking TV show, you just press the dual-audio button on your remote and it instantly switches to English-only.

...

But I guess the fact that we are ranked 7th in this study mostly has to do with the fact that Austria is tourism-heavy, which means every person in that sector needs at least English, and the fact that students already learn English in 1st grade.

[Tender Branson]

Do you guys learn English English or American English or some third thing?  Is the big piece of metal that covers your engine of you car a hood or a bonnet?  Is the thing out back a boot or a trunk?  When it's dark out, do you grab a flashlight or a torch?  When getting in the box to take you to a different floor is at an elevator or a lift?

A mix of both here. I had 4 English teachers and all of them used British written English. But the more we read in school (Newsweek, TIME magazine back then) and watched (American TV shows streamed on the Internet with American English audio track), the more it went to American English. Reading the Harry Potter books in original British English probably brought me back more towards even use of both styles.

But I continue to use "colour" more often than "color" and so on.

And I'd use "hood", "trunk", "torch" and "lift" (because it's the same word in German) ...

[Tender Branson]

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Well, the accurate German word is "Fahrstuhl", not to be mixed up with "driver's seat" - "Fahrersitz" ;-)

Must be a "German" thing. I'm pretty sure that 95% of Austrians use the word "Lift", with the remaining 5% of German immigrants and tourists using "Fahrstuhl" ...

"Fahrstuhl" sounds rather antiquated, from the 1920s or something.

But you Germans probably also still use the word "womenfolk": "Just look at all this coquette womenfolk in the Fahrstuhl" ...

[Tender Branson]

Aufzug! That's the proper German word.

Yeah, that's also an option - but still not widely used here.

[Tender Branson]

"Aufzug" is the word I'd use.

Yes, because you are from Hessen and speak "High-German".

But we Austrians always shiver when we hear Germans use "kucken" instead of "schauen", "Quark" instead of "Topfen", "Tüte" instead of "Sackerl", "eine Eins im Zeugnis bekommen" instead of "einen Einser im Zeugnis bekommen", "Laken" instead of "Leintuch" or when you guys pronounce "China" as "Schiiina" instead of "Kina" or "Chemie" as "Schemie" instead of "Keemie".

And a 1000 other words that I currently don't remember ...

[Tender Branson]

Austrian "das wird sich ausgehen" is rather similar to "it's going to work out." We don't use that in Standard German though. Is there some ancient Austro-Anglo link?

What do you guys use again for "das wird sich ausgehen" ?

Don't know about the ancient Austro-Anglo link. Maybe it has to do with the Germanic/Celtic population movements, or it's just a dialect thing.

[Tender Branson]

Austrian "das wird sich ausgehen" is rather similar to "it's going to work out." We don't use that in Standard German though. Is there some ancient Austro-Anglo link?

What do you guys use again for "das wird sich ausgehen" ?

Don't know about the ancient Austro-Anglo link. Maybe it has to do with the Germanic/Celtic population movements, or it's just a dialect thing.

Das klappt/passt/geht/funktioniert schon, I think. I've never heard the Austrian version before.

Ah yeah.

So in this case it's not that different.

I often use "Das passt/geht/funktioniert". But I also say "das wird sich schon ausgehen" a lot when you refer to stuff that is "hopefully going to work out fine" in the future, not the present (for which you are using the other words).

I never use the word "klappen" though (=> a typical Standard/North-German word).

[Tender Branson]

Austrian "das wird sich ausgehen" is rather similar to "it's going to work out." We don't use that in Standard German though. Is there some ancient Austro-Anglo link?

What do you guys use again for "das wird sich ausgehen" ?

Don't know about the ancient Austro-Anglo link. Maybe it has to do with the Germanic/Celtic population movements, or it's just a dialect thing.

Das klappt/passt/geht/funktioniert schon, I think. I've never heard the Austrian version before.

Ah yeah.

So in this case it's not that different.

I often use "Das passt/geht/funktioniert". But I also say "das wird sich schon ausgehen" a lot when you refer to stuff that is "hopefully going to work out fine" in the future, not the present (for which you are using the other words).

I never use the word "klappen" though (=> a typical Standard/North-German word).

Yeah, I'm pretty much like Tender here. I far more often say "Das wird schon gehen" instead of "Das geht schon" -> so also this present/future thing....

Haha, yeah, "klappen" is so typically German...

Another thing I so often hear with this German German/Austrian German thing, is that German do use the word "hässlich", while we (I assume you too, Tender) would say "schiach" (given that's Austrian/South German dialect, but still, noone says "hässlich")

Yepp.

And then there's of course the classical "Oachkatzlschwoaf" or the "Iaxnboscht", which German folks outside or north of Bavaria can't even pronounce (and most of them probably won't even know what it means) ...