I can see why in Berlin people who hang out in bourgeois spaces would think that. Almost every university graduate under 40 is able to speak English and an awful lot of those under that age. Germany isn’t like Scandinavia where everyone without severe educational issues speaks English well but it’s another world compared to Italy, and Berlin has unusually high levels of competence in English for Germany.
> Berlin has unusually high levels of competence in English for Germany
I would not confirm that.
In Berlin everybody speaks at least some English, and more importantly, people are way less "shy" to do so.
But the overall level of education (and that includes foreign languages) is much much lower in Berlin than in the southern states. You can even get your Abitur in Berlin without having to take English exams. That's something that's impossible in say Bavaria.
There’s no requirement for English in the Bavarian Abitur. You must pick one language up to the exams, but you can totally pick Latin.
I’m fairly confident that you have to have at least 4 years of English in school everywhere in Germany if you have at least Mittlere Reife (you can pick a different language as first language in 5th grade, but you need to have Englisch from 7th to 10th)
English was once mandatory as far as I remember. (And you could pick French, Latin, and sometimes ancient Greek, or Spanish additionally).
But the point about Berlin is in fact a little bit different to what I've written before: You can get ABI there without any foreign language at all! (And their math and physics level was more or less comparable to my 11th grade in Bavaria). I was shocked when I leaned that… (That was the first time I've understood why some people would like to lower the ABI results of people coming form the north by one up to two grades when they come to study in the south; the different levels of education across Germany are in fact a real problem).
You can get the Abitur in Berlin without having a written or oral final exam in a foreign language in Berlin, that’s true as far as I know. You still need to take classes in at least one foreign language in the time up to the exam and the grades will be part of the final grade.
Exactly. It's possible there to have no final exam at all in English (or any other foreign language).
Whereas there were not much possibilities to get around the final exam in the second foreign language in Bavaria, and no way at all to avoid the exam in at least one foreign language. Which makes a very big difference for someone who's not good in languages—as only the grades form the exams are part of the graduation certificate (which is relevant for example when applying for a university place).
That extremely unfair!
You get Abitur in Berlin more or less for free.
The grade from the subjects you don't have any final exams in are of course not part of the graduation certificate…
I know someone who was struggling in Bavarian middle school with at best average grades, moved to Berlin, could join the "equivalent" of Gymnasium there, and got out with an A-grade ABI. Such "good" grades would get you for example prioritized for say studies in medicine or law, whereas you would not even be allowed to get into university in Bavaria with a middle school diploma.
That are literally life changing differences! That's really not OK.
I know someone who changed school from
Rheinland-Pfalz across the river to Mannheim (Baden-Württemberg) and got their Abitur essentially for free - at a private school well known for making everyone pass. So what does that tell us?
