With 50+ people in Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, even Hungary, so basically ex-Habsburg places, it tends to be useful. They picked up some amount of it from their grandparents who remember when it was the lingua franca of the monarchy and their English is not very good usually. The typical old Czech tourist in Budapest will try to communicate in more or less broken German.
Also for young people, in this region young people usually learn English but if they have capacity left, the second one is usually German. And for this reason, “eastern” subsidiaries of DE/AT/CH companies often keep the internal reporting language in it. Which reinforces people wanting to learn it.
The most creative usage I saw was some guys from South Tyrol who offered bilingual SAP consulting to DE/AT/CH firms having subsidiaries in Italy.
I also know a lady who went to East Belgium to work and it worked out well for her.
With 50+ people in Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, even Hungary, so basically ex-Habsburg places, it tends to be useful. They picked up some amount of it from their grandparents who remember when it was the lingua franca of the monarchy and their English is not very good usually. The typical old Czech tourist in Budapest will try to communicate in more or less broken German.
Also for young people, in this region young people usually learn English but if they have capacity left, the second one is usually German. And for this reason, “eastern” subsidiaries of DE/AT/CH companies often keep the internal reporting language in it. Which reinforces people wanting to learn it.
The most creative usage I saw was some guys from South Tyrol who offered bilingual SAP consulting to DE/AT/CH firms having subsidiaries in Italy.
I also know a lady who went to East Belgium to work and it worked out well for her.