Or is it just Erasmus students? It seemed like everyone knew three or four languages - their own, Spanish, and English. Is this typical of today's younger Europeans as a whole, or just the smarter of them, which Erasmus students would be?
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
It's not uncommon to be trilingual in Europe, and you don't necessarily have to be from up north. It's just the education. People who quit school after the compulsory years are over will probably only speak their mother tongue and a bit of tourist English to get by. Those who go on to Abitur/Matura/A-Levels/Bac/whatever almost certainly will have to learn a third language, sometimes even a fourth.
I live in Austria, my mother tongue is German, and that alone can be confusing enough when interacting with people from Germany or Switzerland, or even other parts of the country. Some dialects really sound like whole different languages, but you have to understand them all.
Anyway, so I started learning English at elementary, Latin and French at secondary school, and Spanish at a school I attended before I enrolled at university. Admitted, I love languages and I'm studying to become a translator, but even if I'd hated it, I wouldn't have had a choice.
The great majority of my friends (not counting, obviously, my fellow students as this would distort the statistics) are trilingual, most of them speak English and French or Spanish.
I gotta learn german sometime soon. English is just not enough, specially in central EU, with germany nearby and austria on the border.
I'm from Latvia and I speak:
native- Latvian
*) fluent Russian (many Russians here, subtitled movies etc.)
*) fluent English (in the early years from tv, later from 3rd grade at school, now studying English at the university)
*) so-so German (can understand and speak even if I don't know all the words)
*) beginner's level French... can ask simple questions and reply when asked simple questions, understand some...
I'm going to Mainz for my 5 month ERASMUS... I hope to improve my German and maybe also French while being there.
I think that people from smaller countries are more motivated to learn foreign languages. If you live on an island like a Brit or over the pond like an American, there is no need to learn other language because maybe you won't even go to the country where that language is required + nowadays +/- all young people from Europe at least understand, if not speak, some English... so maybe there's no motivation.
The same with my German and French. It's hard to improve those if you don't have anybody to communicate with in German or French. Last summer I met an elderly German couple here in Latvia who spoke no English and wanted to know something about a local Catholic church ensemble. As I didn't know anything about that and my German was lacking, I couldn't help... but still it was great to just chat with them about "Woher kommen Sie?" and stuff like that...
I'm from Austria and I speak:
1) German (native tongue)
2) English (fluently)
3) French (six years in school)
4) Spanish (four years in school)
5) Czech (only started a few months ago at university)
I'm from Argentina and I speak:
1) Spanish (native)
2) English (bilingual, we have English at school but I barely picked anything at all there, most of my English I learnt it from TV, as most of the people living outside Europe or countries where American movies are subtitled would have had).
3) German (fluent, trying my best to be as good as I am in English)
4) French (9 months crash course)
5) Dutch (no, seriously, I love the language and sometimes I just watch cheesy TV shows on YouTube just so I can listen to it, too bad most of their musicians are douches who want to go commercial and sing in English)
6) Italian (come from an Italian background, still need serious improvement)
I really envy Europeans because they have an extremely wide array of opportunities to learn foreign languages. Suppose you're the son of Polish immigrants in Vlaams, you'll be able to speak 4 to 5 languages fluently (Polish, Dutch, French, English and possibly German or Spanish at school), it's amazing!