In the Netherlands I see something similar, in that Dutch people are actually too enthousiastic to speak English—many of my expat friends tell me that when they try to speak Dutch, people will respond in English.
Not speaking Dutch is all fine while you’re on your student visum in an English speaking environment, but it breaks down when you have to pay taxes or get a letter from the immigration office—all that is in Dutch.
Personally, I think it is great to learn a new language, and you’ll gain a lot from it as a person, but there is also a real necessity to it once you start to live somewhere for a longer time—a fact that one might not immediately recognise because of European enthousiasm to speak and interact in English.
> Not speaking Dutch is all fine while you’re on your student visum in an English speaking environment, but it breaks down when you have to pay taxes or get a letter from the immigration office—all that is in Dutch.
Denmark has gone to the next level and even this is largely in English now too, which makes it even harder / less motivating for foreigners to learn Danish. Most government websites are dual-language, and every civil-service employee speaks English. Many state agencies (and banks, pension funds, unions, etc.) now also give recipients an option of Danish or English for receiving official communications, and some actually default to English if you're registered as a non-Danish national, so you'd have to specifically request Danish if you wanted it.
Not speaking Dutch is all fine while you’re on your student visum in an English speaking environment, but it breaks down when you have to pay taxes or get a letter from the immigration office—all that is in Dutch.
Personally, I think it is great to learn a new language, and you’ll gain a lot from it as a person, but there is also a real necessity to it once you start to live somewhere for a longer time—a fact that one might not immediately recognise because of European enthousiasm to speak and interact in English.