A new international ranking by Education First found that Germany as a whole had a "very high" level of English proficiency, which saw it placed in the world's top 10 albeit behind neighbours Austria and the Netherlands.
But perhaps the biggest surprise in the rankings this year was seen when looking in more detail at how well English is spoken in different parts of Germany.
Usually considered the cosmopolitan heart of the country, Berlin perhaps surprisingly didn't top the table for the German city with the best English skills.
Globally, the city had the sixth-highest score among national capitals, trailing only Amsterdam, Vienna and the Scandinavian capitals.
Within Germany, however, Berlin lagged behind the competition.
According to the ranking the best German city for speaking English is now Karlsruhe, in the north of Baden-Württemberg, with a massive score of 662.
The tech town is best known for being home to the German version of MIT (appropriately called KIT) and as the seat of the Federal Constitutional Court.
Karlsruhe was joined by Munich (647 points) in second place, as well as the neighbouring cities of Bonn and Cologne in third and fourth, respectively.
Berlin, with a score of 625, ranked only ninth nationally, sandwiched between Frankfurt and Dortmund. Meanwhile, the lowest-scoring German city was Essen, the only one not in the "very high" English proficiency category with a score of 599.
At the regional level, Bavaria comes out on top with a score of 627, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia and Bremen. At the bottom was the small region of Saarland (572) in the far west, just below Brandenburg and Lower Saxony.
Do these rankings match your own experience? Can you survive in Germany without speaking German? Members can share their views in the comments section below.
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