作者：Gunter Schoech
链接：https://www.zhihu.com/question/21768003/answer/310904718
来源：知乎
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I am a German, married to a French wife, and living in France and Germany
In my own company, the only company language is English
So I should be well placed to answer this question. At least, I have a lot of personal experience with it.
First of all: The question is justified. In deed, the average English level of German people is much better than the average English level of French people.
If you are lost, ask for directions on the street, not everybody in Germany will speak English or speak it well, but you will quickly find somebody who does, even if you talk to random people.
In France, it might be much harder.
In the professional context, you will find that most people do speak more or less, but the French accent might be much harder to understand than the German accent in English.
So what are the reasons for this?
I don't think it is the school curriculum. My French wife and I (German) have 2 sons who go to school in France, but they are still young (4 and 6 years old). But from what I know from friends and family here, and my wife, the language is an integral part of the studies. Even my kindergarten son of 4 has learned some words in English, some Spanish, and some Catalan (the local language here, which exists on both sides of the Spanish and French border on the Mediterranean side).
But this brings me to the first difference: The French high school system differentiates 3 types of "gaokao" that you can make. The one which is most prestigious, and which basically all really good students will chose, is called bac(calaureat) - S, where S stands for Scientific (math and natural sciences) The others are focusing on business and social sciences, including the languages. So languages don't have a very high priority when it comes to having the best high school graduation in order get into the best universities.
Another difference is that the French don't necessarily prioritize English as first foreign language. In Germany, that is the norm. Only very few schools (like mine, when I went to high school) start with the dead language Latin. For me, English was second, at age 12.
My wife started with Spanish, which is more normal here in the South of France.
Traditionally, there is also a large number of students starting with German, of course more towards the border with Germany in the East. That share is declining, but it's still there.
Next I think is the fact that French people have a lower need to speak foreign languages than Germans. Germany has more borders with other countries than any other country in Europe. Also, German is spoken as mother tongue only by Austrians and a part of Swiss people besides Germans.
When you look at smaller countries, their language skills are even much better. Take the Dutch, the Swedes, the Danish or Norwegians.
French people prefer to stay in their own cultural context, and often they can. I worked a short while for Renault, the French car maker, in their Paris headquarters. I did that to check out if working in France was an option for me. It was not. Because the French stayed so much among themselves, did not know about the world outside their country, leave alone that they cared. Students from the top 1 very elite École Polytechnique, their finest engineering school, would not even know schools outside France, the MIT for example. They would not even consider to work for BMW, Audi or Mercedes, rather settle for Renault, Peugeot or Citroen, but stay in France.
-> under such conditions: What for learn foreign languages?
In fact, today, in France, I am part of Rotary International. Many other members, usually much older than I, have spend years or even decades abroad. But with few exceptions, that was always in a French-Speaking country, typically one of the former colonies in Northern Africa.
Compare that to the British, as the most extreme case: Having had the better part of the world as a colony once, their language is spoken globally. In consequence, their own skills of foreign languages are quite underdeveloped. There is simply no pressure.
Germany and France are in the middle between the Nordic or Baltic states and the UK. But Germany is a little bit more like the small countries, while France is a little more like the UK.
In France itself, people are known for not speaking English, even if they could, simply in order to force the other side to speak French. This is maybe gradually disappearing, as most of the other things I mentioned above are also changing. But It still can be felt a little. Some French still take themselves for "La grande Nation", = the great nation, and want others to adapt.
Final argument:
German and English are both Germanic Languages. French is a romanic language = of Latin origin.
It is probably easier for a German to learn English than for a French.
Truth be told: English is actually a big mixture of linguistic origins. And French also played a big part in it. Just check out the history of the 100-years war in the 15th century between the two countries, where England had more or less vast possessions in France, and the entire noble family in England actually came from Normandy, spoke French and no English at all, and claimed to throne of France as well (compare the history of the Plantagenet dynasty). But that's a different story.
