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A comment on European Union plans to tax tech giants on local revenue. Parent comment

Re:European Union plans to tax tech giants on local revenue by jfaucett on Monday March 05, 2018 @04:13PM (#16524453)
> Don't forget, most Europeans also speak English.

Just pointing out that's not true. The number is around 38% who have a working knowledge, second place is tied with German and French at 14% [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language_in_Europe#Oth...

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Re:European Union plans to tax tech giants on local revenue by robinson7d on Monday March 05, 2018 @04:34PM (#16524658)
That citation is for "English as a foreign language", and if you read the end of the paragraph you see they are excluding UK and Ireland.

English as a first language accounts for 13%, which when added to the 38% leaves you with 51% (or, "most")

http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/e... (Cited at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...)

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Re:European Union plans to tax tech giants on local revenue by NicoJuicy on Monday March 05, 2018 @04:30PM (#16524620)
All those who you get in contact with then ;)

Those numbers also don't have a correct representation of English speaking business owners and English speakers ( first language). Since your numbers mention "English as foreign language".

Same wiki :

The language is also a required subject in most European countries.[3] Thus, the percentage of English speakers is expected to rise.

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Re:European Union plans to tax tech giants on local revenue by freeflight on Monday March 05, 2018 @08:30PM (#16526181)
> Thus, the percentage of English speakers is expected to rise.

The number of English speakers has been steadily increasing for quite a while already, at least in Germany. Mere 10 years ago speaking English was a skill which wasn't that common and thus quite a bit valued, nowadays most modern (and especially IT-centric) companies expect you to know English, it's nothing really special anymore, at this point it's rather expected.

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