It’s the Christian™ thing to do.

I don’t know what study these numbers are based on, but many of them only assess certain (typically younger) age groups. In my experience, the people coming out of school today in Germany are often quite good in English.

Edit: Looked it up. The data are not based on any study but the results of test takers that aim to earn a certain language certificate. So no specific age group but still likely younger people. The sample is completely self-selected, though, so it’s hard to say anything definitive. From the Wikipedia page:

The EF EPI 2024 edition was calculated using test data from 2.1 million test takers in 2023. The test takers were self-selected. 116 countries and territories appear in this edition of the index. In order to be included, a country was required to have at least 400 test takers.

And more:

The EF English Proficiency Index has been the subject of criticism in literature. From the point of view of methodology, it suffers from self-selection bias. Instead of testing the level of English proficiency in the population, it tests the level of English of those who self-select.

This seems like a very poor basis for a country ranking.

Any fans of 3Blue1Brown? This open problem taught me what topology is

This is so true, and it’s actively harmful when students go on to university. Many students write like their main goal is to impress their readers. The opposite is true in academic writing, where this kind of flamboyant writing actually weakens the substance.

It’s okay, just say “no homo” after thinking the thoughts and ur good.

Nope.

Edit: Unless they replaced beef with fox (Fuchs) meat or it’s the owner’s name or something. In which case it would only be stupid.

German here. What?

I was referring to their activities for Voice of Europe, a Russian news organization that provided lucrative speaking gigs to both Bystron and Krah and many other right-wing politicians. The full-blown espionage that Krah was also involved in through his aide (Jian G.) is a separate matter. I was trying to “steel-man” the argument that, even if by ignorance, they pass on information at least recklessly. Sorry, I should’ve specified what “actors” I meant.

There are multiple well-documented cases of AfD politicians colluding with Russian state actors (Petr Bystron, Maximilian Krah), and the same is true for many other figures in the European extreme right. Even if these people weren’t actively passing on information, which they probably are doing, they are far too stupid to not accidentally leak information to the Russian secret service.

You know what, Toby? When the son of the deposed King of Nigeria e-mails you directly asking for help, you help. His father ran the freaking country, okay?

“Blah blah blah… ‘click sign in’… Okay, gotcha!”

Man, I hate these stupid jokes. Every time someone goes “statistically, one in three people is X, now look at the person to your left and right”, I want to scream “HAHAHAHAHAHAH SO FUNNY THAT’S STATISTICS FOR YOU AMIRITE” with an absolutely straight face. Bad enough they don’t know how statistics work, but they’re perpetuating other people’s ignorance on top of that.

The what? OP, the what??? DON’T LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THIS!!!

Light blue, though. Regular blue is milk chocolate.

Honestly, I’d be completely happy with that.

My cat also refuses to be defined by simple labels like that.

For sure. From what little I know about anatomy, ribs don’t connect to the shoulder, and there aren’t any ribs above the clavicle.

Man, honestly. I thought using GIF as an example would be a funny way to illustrate this genuinely cool feature. I expected some craziness but not at this level. People comment with passion, holy hell.

This is about the phonetics tooltip on Wikipedia, the GIF page is just for illustration, because that’s a phonetics topic that many people know.

“The ga-RAH-ge! Oh lah-dee dah, Mr. Frenchman.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhbJnlIvfyc