I would say the English level in Germany is quite high all in all.

Everybody understands it, most people are able to speak it quite well.

This should be no wonder as the languages are actually quite similar. At least the gap isn't so big as for example between English and some Latin language, or even something linguistically much more far away.

But even people are considerably well educated in this regard they don't like to speak English in daily life. Berlin (and the few other big northern cities like Frankfurt) are mostly an exception to that. But even there this does not hold for authorities. They will on principle insist on German.

>....as the languages are actually quite similar.

They're actually quite not. Try typing something into www.deepl.com - verb placement alone separates the languages by much more than a few shared roots.

* I do so wish the German rules on the pronunciation of 'ei', and 'ie' could be/ could have been internationally adopted.

I hosted Greil Marcus at Google. His first name rhymes with "real" and not with "style" as one with German training would expect.

I asked him about that. He said in Alabama where he was born this was fairly common.

>> ....as the languages are actually quite similar.

> They're actually quite not.

Of course German and English are very close related.

Both are Germanic languages. Look here, in the right lower corner:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages#/media...

Or here:

https://alternativetransport.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/34/

Not only words and grammar are closely related even most of the idiomatic "pictures" are exactly the same in both languages.

I have also no clue what you mean by "verb placement alone separates the languages" as both languages use by default SPO (subject - predicate - object) word order. (German is a little bit more flexible in this regard, though).