Bit surprised that there is no mention of language skills. There will be an increasing number of admissions to our academy whose first language is not English.
Most of our European neighbours have a good grasp of English. I'll admit that the lads in South America tend not to speak anything other than their native tongue, but we don't see a wild amount of those. My Spanish friends tell me that they find South American spanish difficult to understand at times too.
Give me South American Spanish every day of the week, it's far easier to understand than Castillian, which sounds more like somebody struggling to speak with a mouthful of dental tools in their mouth whilst spitting all over you. Not easy or pleasant.
Based on recent experiences here whilst helping out at a music festival where about 50% of the young audience were visiting Europeans, I'd say the Scandinavians, Danish and Dutch are pretty much fluent in English. The Germans and French were also very good but there was always one or two in a group of say 8-10 that didn't speak a word. The Spanish had a few that were extremely good but almost all really struggle but by far the worst were the Italians, which is strange as they really are a nation of travelers.
The Portuguese are the real show-offs, almost all speak English well, more than decent Spanish, get by with some French and a bit of Italian. How much is down to education, the Latin languages or not having films dubbed I can't say but would imagine a combination of the three.
