I've always intuitively felt that the Dutch were the best non-native English speakers out there, it's nice to see this confirmed with data.
Not surprisingly the areas with native Germanic languages do the best in this survey.
Not surprisingly the areas with native Germanic languages do the best in this survey.
My husband and I were taking a few weeks after college graduation to visit Europe. I had studied French in school, so we made stops in a few different French cities. In one city, Lille, we were chatting in the town square when a group of 3 teenage boys came running up to us. In perfect English, one said "You speak English!! Thank God! We're here on a school trip from (some city in the Netherlands) and need to take a photo with someone here for a scavenger hunt." They admitted that they were completely horrified of the prospect of having to attempt to speak French in France.
As a native English speaker who has German family and studied German I always have found that Dutch seems "halfway" between the two languages. I can usually figure out what a sentence means by reading it that way.
In Denmark, I can speak English to the cleaner, the security guard, the fast food seller, quite young children, the bus driver, and pensioners. Both in Copenhagen and smaller towns.
In the Netherlands, this has mixed results.
Writing can be mixed in Denmark. They are so confident in their ability, they don't check the result. I suspect few bothered to take the voluntary test this useless survey is based on.
(Source: I live in Denmark, I visit the Netherlands for work.)