really? from my single trip to Gemany (Koln) i wasn't too impressed with them either
although the Dutch and Nordics seem all seem to speak excellent English.
in France and Spain i don't think they put much emphasis on teaching and practising English, most of their TV is dubbed, and they generally seem too lazy for foreign languages. also some French schools place English as an option
along with German or Spanish, and i've met a few that chose that instead of English, including people who don't live anywhere near the borders. in the past both Spain and Portugal used to teach French ahead of English, although that doesn't explain why many Spanish today seem to speak neither, plus the sheer size of their countries and reach of their languages already mean they're never too isolated.
i'd put it down partly to sheer laziness or arrogance in France and Spain, because many people seem to speak nothing but their own language, and partly to the remaining influence of Latin languages in those places.
in Portugal they taught English from 5th to 12th grade until around 2000. after that they started teaching starting on 1st grade. the vast majority of movies and TV shows aren't dubbed but subtitled. while Portuguese is spoken by about 200M people (more than French i think, suck it frogs!), most of them are in Brazil and Africa, so as a small, isolated country in Europe maybe we needed English more than our neighbours did. languages are considered important in our education, everyone leaves high school with at least basic command of a third language.
never visited Italy, but the Italians i met were fluent in English and for some reason felt even more at home than us with other Latin languages. maybe Italian is closer to the root Latin so it's easier to make sense of the "sister" languages??
finally there's Romania but who cares about them lol. some of the hottest girls around though.
EDIT:
oh yeah on topic, just saw Death at a Funeral (American version), meh.
