Europeans: roughly around what year or decade did English become widespread in your country?

[Östsvensk]

I would coin it with the advent of internet. Some sort of Anglophone culture through American tv shows, music and cinema had infused before that but when it comes to specifically language, i believe it started around the mid 90's, and as the internet became more mainstream early 2000 most of content was forced initially to be consumed in English language.

Nowadays people become decently capable to at least understand English by watching tv shows and reading articles on the internet. The generation before who just learned it in school, isn't, or not much more than what they remember of their German or Italian classes.

I learned English on the internet. In school, I struggled with it and had to be placed in a special education class (just English, not as a whole). Then after a few years, the teacher wondered what I was doing here and thought something was clearly wrong for having put me there.

[Jana]

I started elementary school in 98/99, and we learned English since the first grade.

[Petalpusher]

I learned English on the internet. In school, I struggled with it and had to be placed in a special education class (just English, not as a whole). Then after a few years, the teacher wondered what I was doing here and thought something was clearly wrong for having put me there.

I had a similar experience. I was like like average in English classes, it was a bit of a recreation hour frankly for most and it wasn't accounting for much in our overall score. Then went to some long exchange student program in Oxford. Few months later, my english teacher back home couldn't believe the progress i made. Then i just started consuming things in English, and that's pretty much it. English at moderate level i believe, is incredibly easy to learn the moment you are routinely exposed to it, which the previous generation lacked greatly. Only those who painfully went through years of serious English classes in the education system are decent, which is rare.

[Tooting Carmen]

I started elementary school in 98/99, and we learned English since the first grade.

How much did your time in New York improve your English?

[Jana]

How much did your time in New York improve your English?

Not that much to be honest. I adopted New Yorker accent by the end of my stay there but quickly lost it when I came home. At home in Brooklyn with my host family I spoke Croatian.
Before America, I spent two summers learning English in Cambridge and Dublin and had lot of exposure to English trough out my entire life (pop culture, family overseas, extra english classes outside of school, I do some translations on legal English for my job as well).

I consider my English very inadequate and poor compared to how much money and time my parents and life overall invested into me learning it. But I never bothered to improve it much anyways. I speak with eastern European accent instead of western one because I like it that way and never understood eastern Europeans who try hard to speak Queen's English or US styled English. I'm lazy and don't care to make too much effort and find it fake on top of it.

Some people are naturally talented for languages (usually those with good ear and musical abilities) but I am not. Learned Italian and German in shcool but forgot almost everything. I forgot much of Hungrian I knew as well. Languages are simply not my baustelle as Germans say.

[Östsvensk]

Not that much to be honest. I adopted New Yorker accent by the end of my stay there but quickly lost it when I came home. At home in Brooklyn with my host family I spoke Croatian.
Before America, I spent two summers learning English in Cambridge and Dublin and had lot of exposure to English trough out my entire life (pop culture, family overseas, extra english classed outside of school, I do some translations on legal English for my job as well).

I consider my English very inadequate and poor compared to how much money and time my parents and life overall invested into me learning it. But I never bothered to improve it much anyways. I speak with eastern European accent instead on western one because I like it that way and never understood eastern Europeans who try hard to speak Queen's English or US styled English. I'm lazy and don't care to make too much effort and find it fake on top of it.

Some people are naturally talented for languages (usually those with good ear and musical abilities) but I am not. Learned Italian and German in shcool but forgot almost everything. I forgot much of Hungrian I knew as well. Languages are simply not my baustelle as Germans say.

It's very hard to learn a second language and sound native anyway. Bad pronunciation if it's Borat level is one thing, but expecting a fully native dialect is just too much IMHO. Even Trey Parker who is an extremely talented voice actor and speaks English natively thought it was difficult to pull off a Southern accent.

[Roy]

Probably 2000s. Before that I suppose the knowledge of Russian and German was more common as a foreign language.

Currently it is essentially only older people (by that I mean 50+ who do not speak or understand English).