I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it’s pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that’d be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can’t ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning “swimming” made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

  • aard@kyu.deOP
    59·
    1 year ago

    In Germany it’s also mandatory - but learning the language at school unfortunately doesn’t necessarily mean you can speak it. LucasArts adventures contributed more to my language skills than my first English teacher. I’m always shocked about the lack of English skills in a lot of Germans when I’m back visiting. Rather surprisingly one of my uncles born in the 30s spoke pretty good English, though.

    We’re now living in Finland - me German, wife Russian, we each speak to the kids in our native language, between each other English. So they’re growing up with 4 languages.

    It’s quite interesting to watch them grow up in that situation. When learning about a new historical figure my daughter always asks which languages they spoke - and few weeks ago she was surprised someone only spoke two languages. So I explained that some people only speak one language - she gave me a very weird look, and it took a while to convince her that I’m not just making a bad joke.

    • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      16·
      1 year ago

      Also Germany.
      I learned english in school but only enough to be able to read it.
      Once I started reading user submitted short stories (lile fan fics but different) my grammar really improved.
      Nowadays the content I consume is basically 90% english based.

      Just my capitalization and grammar structure sucks. Also my vocal skills as I have no one to talk to.

      But: I really have to thank my last Grundschul and Realschul english teachers. Without those two I may have never got into english that well.

      • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
        2·
        1 year ago

        For me it was mainly watching films and tv shows in english. I’ve always preferred the original audio on anything, really. So it motivated me a good bit to become more fluent.
        The only german dub I didn’t hate was Breaking Bads’, and even then I wasn’t overly fond of it.

        • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          2·
          1 year ago

          Can’t get over english cartoons dubs.
          Ben10, Avatar ATLA and spongebob sound so much worse in english compared to german to my ears. Could not enjoy it.
          Live action movies are usually equal or only slightly worse regarding original vs dubbed german.

      • SoGrumpy@lemmy.ml
        23·
        1 year ago

        Without those two I may have never gotten into english that well.

        FTFY. Not a dig, just correcting your already very good English.

    • coffinwood@feddit.de
      101·
      1 year ago

      That’s a point current generation children are actively working on by following English-speaking streamers, communicating in predominantly English Discords, etc. The worst: my kid chose to prefer American English. Where did I go wrong?