I've lived with the same impression util I left my home.
When I was much younger, I was impressed about English. I can find anything I want on the internet with English. Most forums seem to use English primarily and so on.
Then I went out. I've visited quite a few European countries. And I was shocked. In most places they were expecting me to know .. German. And I don't say this only about Germany, or Austria, or Switzerland. Same happened in Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Italy... and of course, the French would prefer French, but English was also OK.
Now with UK getting out of EU, I expect German get even more traction.

English is a much simpler language and it's the language of IT and internet. But don't get fooled. The world is bigger than that.