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The "Association of Eastern European Translators" is quoted as saying, in a CeCIT brochure issued by the Romanian Trade Ministry, that Romanians collectively have the greatest linguistic variety of all Europe. The visitor will be well inclined to believe this.
Since foreign TV shows are usually not translated (but subtitled), and since the film industry is dominated by the USA, young children are exposed to English media from diaper age on. The English abilities of young Romanians is stunning - rarely will you encounter stuttering or grasping for words... a very high percentage speaks absolutely fluent English.
Due to one thousand years of German settlement, one finds many German language high schools in all of Transylvania and in Bucharest. Even university can be attended in German in many subjects - for instance economics at the Economics Academy of Bucharest or informatics at Transilvania University in Brasov.
Transylvania is home to a large Hungarian minority, representing about 20% of the population. The language combination Hungarian / Romanian, as mother tongues, plus English / German as additional languages is absolutely common. Romanian itself is a Romance language, which emerged out of Latin along with Italian. Romanians can therefore pick up Italian as easily as Dutch can pick up German. French, Spanish and Portuguese are also widely spoken languages.
Except for its border with Hungary, Romania is entirely surrounded by the Slavic language area. This results in a significant number of Slavic language speakers also.
Romania, therefore, is the ideal location for translations into almost every European language.
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