The Swedish education system has always been serious about English as a second language from what I hear. They start teaching English in school early, so guys like Lindberg already have an edge over others.
Found this article from a few years back:
http://www.thelocal.se/20131107/swedes-ranked-again-best-world-english
I see the Dutch are pretty darn good at English, too. I remember when I was younger I used to play online games with Dutch guys, and their English was outstanding.
Yeah. But to be fair, there is a clear distinction between 2 groups of young adults and kids.
The one group are the ones who, form a very young age, listen to English when watching movies and tv-shows with subtitles, and are taught English in school. That starts at age 5.
The other group are the kids with a lower education who don't put in the effort and watch dubbed movies and tv-shows.
Dutch, like Swedish, Norwegian, Danish etc is a language which is not really helpful the moment you cross the border. This is not the same in countries like France, Spain, Portugal etc. Those languages are quite common.
I also speak Afrikaans, after living in South Africa for a few years, and it's really helpful to know different languages, because it makes you more aware of the little nuances in for instance the English language.
Their/They're/There
Straight/Strait
Too/Two/To
Though, Tough, Through, Thorough
We don't want to mess those up