Sale on steaks and nails

Yet more English signage, all of these on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse near Alexanderplatz. I went into a souvenir shop underneath the Fernsehturm, and eavesdropped on the interaction between the woman in the shop and a couple of tourists. The tourists weren't speaking German (Russian, maybe?), but they also clearly were not speaking English--yet the woman chose to address them in English. I don't think I ever realized until I got to Europe how much English has become a lingua franca. This makes me look back to interactions I've had, where I speak to someone in a shop in German, and they answer in English because they know my German isn't very good. I always assumed something about my accent told them I'm an English-speaker, but now I wonder if it's just that that's the language you switch to if you know someone doesn't speak German but don't know what language they do speak. Another instance of English as lingua franca was at the Humboldt's language party, where English was the only language we all spoke, even though no one but me was a native speaker.

I'm now wondering how much the prevalence of English signs is influenced by English's status as a lingua franca.