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The article attempts to analyze how well schools in the sixteen different states in Germany are fulfilling the goals of the language policy of the European Union that each student should be proficient in three languages. The author points out that the German law called the Hamburger Abkommen of 1964 required that all secondary pupils must learn English, and that later standards in some German states also explicitly require the learning of French. Also discussed is the great variety of foreign languages offered in German schools, although the largest percentage of pupils graduating from schools of all levels have proficiency in the English language, which is seen as a gateway to learning other languages.

The article presents information about relations between multilingualism and speakers of both standard language and dialects. Dialect-standard competency is discussed in terms of its presence in German areas of Switzerland. It is described as a form of bilingualism in two related languages or language varieties, often found in children who absorb both the standard language and its regional dialect during their speech-learning process. Results are included from a study seeking to determine whether inhabitants of provincial areas with dialect-standard competency more easily learn foreign languages than speakers of pure standard language or pure dialect.