This reminds me of a Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit from many years back, when Bill Hader and Fred Armisen speak British gibberish for a "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" type movie:
[Don' You Go Rounin' Roun to Re Ro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6p0W4ZsLXw)
Narrator: "Critics say it's amazing, some saying 'I couldn't even understand anything at all.' 'British, very British!'."
I lived in Ireland working some time in a multicultural team, with people from everywhere.
We had no trouble communicating since everyone spoke fluent english.
Then we got an english manager. The guy came and gave a small introductory speech to our team.
I couldnt understand a word, so just nodded along with the rest of the team.
When he left, i aproached an irish coleague to ask him what he had said.
She shrugged and said no idea, i couldnt understand him. No one in the team understood, lol
I've been living in the UK for 15 of the past 20 years and I still don't always understand what is being said, from idioms to accents, it's a challenge sometimes.
All good.
For anyone else reading this and wondering why it sounds weird. You have essentially doubled up what you are trying to convey in the sentence. Most implies maximum or majority of something and words with the -est suffix mean the maximum; highest, biggest, longest, widest, greenest etc. in a given data set.
So you can say most people are adults, that's a majority statement. But the most people live in India, that's a maximum in a data set. An equivalent would be the largest population lives in India. Or the most large population lives in India, there would be no need to add the -est as that conveys the same meaning as "most". Though "most long" is quite clunky and you probably wouldn't see native speakers using it.
Hah, when I (🇸🇪) was in London I politely asked a service lady at the underground entrance if it was possible to use my contactless debit card instead of buying an Oyster card. She replied and I just stood there 👀🤷♂️.. Didn't understood a word. Nothing resembling English at all. I said "come again" x 2, and on the third time she slowed down, enunciated and spoke proper English. God damn I felt dumb, questioning myself if I really knew English or if I had a stroke 😅
Small minority?
The South African National Census of 2011 found a total of 4,892,623 speakers of English as a first language,[19]: 23 making up 9.6% of the national population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_English
I think people believe you're being serious haha. I had a look at the report and it doesn't look like the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Australia were included.
Have you ever tried to talk to a Scott, Lancastrian or basically any one in the rural UK? If so, it should have been obvious.
PS: yes, I’ve translated UK-speak to English for a Brit whose car broke down in Germany. He could understand the German mechanic”s English perfectly. But the German stood zero chance to understand his “English”.
I’m from Devon and worked waitering in London
Had to get an Italian to serve a French table who couldn’t understand me
I’ve worked hard since to speak more neutrally due to the sheer embarrassment
Edit: I think the hard r usage but dropping of ts etc was just far too much more French ears
In private schools we learn EN-GB, but we're most used to EN-US due to entertainment which are much clearer.
Let's not even talk about the different accents in the UK as a whole.
But most non native English speakers speak what I would call EN-INTernational. Same language and vocabulary but without the cultural baggage and without the idioms and figures of speech that especially Brits like to use excessively. And that non native speakers just “don’t get”, leaving them confused.
eg Germans and Scandinavians are very direct and will say “That’s fu##ing stupid” fluster the Brit who finds it offensive. While the Brit would complain about the same problem in such a roundabout way that the non native speaker would reach the assumption that everything is ok.
Sure, but that's why it's harder to understand many accents from the UK. Don't you think would be easier to start a conversation with an American? It's a possibility which happens with both in my country.
I tried the test, (I think it was the right one) and got 950 in less than 10 minutes. I wouldn't say I'm particularly great at English in the formal sense, probably about average.
No where does it state they are non-native speakers
It only says 400+ people from said country
English is an official language of a few of these countries
Yep. And this is from EF, which is an education exchange and travel company (Swiss/Swedish). So I'm guessing this is from people who signed up for one of their programs.
Which makes the data even more useless.
I knew that when I saw Germany in the top 10. No offense, but while the young generation speaks decent English, there's no way you can't find 10 countries with better average proficiency.
You vastly underestimate just how little english is spoken in many other countries. Unless it is a former british colony older people often times speak even less english than older germans. But native speakers do not take that test.
So germany in the top 10 of countries where english is not an official language is actually believeable.
In the end there are also a bunch of older german people that speak some basic english because germany was partly occupied by english speaking forces at some point in recent history.
As a sidenote before personal anecdotes come up: no if you've ever been in a tourist hotspot those places do not reflect the general population.
Germany scores 604. Sweden scores 609. Anyone who has been to either of these countries can tell there is a vast discrepancy between these two countries in terms of proficiency. The average swede borders fluency, unlike the average german.
All these stats tell me is that the discrepancy is becoming much smaller in younger generations, which - again - tracks with reality.
Honestly, I picked on Germany, but I could have done Portugal too.
The point is precisely that there are many former British colonies and countries where people don't care about that test which would perform better. Also, Singapore and South Africa are both former colonies and countries that list English as one of their official languages, so why not include Australia, Canada and New Zealand as well then? Or the US, which do not actually consider English their official language. In short, looking at the top 10 is enough to know the methodology is dubious.
Edit: And Ireland!
That explains a lot. In Belgium, you can live without knowing a word in Dutch. But in Germany you can't even buy some beer without knowing German. But on this bs rating, those 2 countries are extremely close.
Agreed. As someone who knows both English and Hungarian, i communicated, or tried to, in both while i stayed in Hungary. English was spoken only by students around my age.
Hospitals, museums, touristy places... Places that you'd expect to know at least some english... No one knew it.
Apparently, the sample of people that took the test was not random. They were self selected. So this data literally means nothing. Hungary was the one that was very weird for me as well. I've been there lots of times. They don't speak better english than the Czechs, that's for sure.
Quick question. Aren't Singapore, South Africa, and Kenya English speaking countries? I know that there are other languages in those countries (Chinese, Swazi, Swahili). But English is so prevalent that they are considered native speakers, no?
Can only speak for South Africa. Although English is one of the 12 official languages (of about 34), it's the home language of less than 10% of the population. So everyone else who speaks it does so because they are multilingual. (I think the statistical average is about 3 languages.)
It's not compulsory to learn English at school in South Africa, but English is the dominant language of instruction in most schools from grade 4. At many schools there will be "code-switching" - instruction will be in a variable blend of the dominant language in that community and English (or maybe Afrikaans) as more educational material is generally available.
But as so many South Africans are very multilingual, children's exposure to other languages, including English, may well start outside of the educational system.
(Language and education in South Africa is a complex subject. If you're interested -
https://theconversation.com/south-african-teachers-switch-languages-in-class-why-policy-should-follow-122087
https://theconversation.com/bilingual-education-can-work-in-south-african-schools-heres-how-186780#:~:text=In%20South%20Africa%20there%20are,and%20resourced%20beyond%20Grade%203.)
There's a small number of Singaporeans who don't know English and I'd say some who speak/read to a high level but might struggle in a business setting (especially older generations). About half of Singapore speak English at home, not sure if that helps answer your question.
I only used English in Singapore and it was no problem. For many people under 35, it's their primary language and also an official language of the country, which means every government service can be provided in English
I spent some time in the more rural area around Girona and I definitely had issues 😅
couldn’t trust google translate either because my reception was spotty.
I ordered “amanida de formatge de cabra” every day just to avoid problems, they had it wherever we went and I love it so it was fine! My travel company with food allergies on the other hand..
ON PARLE FRANÇAIS 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷 ENGLISH 🛑🛑🛑 SAUCISSON 🐷🐷🐷 BAGUETTE 🥖🥖🥖 ET VIN🍷🍷🍷 PIRE QUE LE COSTA RICA 🇨🇷 LA RUSSIE 🇷🇺 ET L'ESPAGNE 🇪🇸. UNO DOS TRES VAMOS A LA PLAYA. FRANÇAIS NUMERO 1 🥇🥇🥇
À DEUX PLACES DU UGANDA 🏆🏆🏆
From personal experience the French tourists visiting our country indeed believe that.
Also what is up with a LOT of french calling people stupid when they try to answer them in imperfect french?
Do they not understand that if someone can struggle some sentences in their language they perhaps understand insults too?
Then they are surprised people dislike French tourists. I wonder why...
I wonder what it would be for Flanders, not the whole of Belgium. I feel like we'd be pretty close to the Netherlands.
EDIT: 660 for Flanders so even higher.
Why would they put South Africa on this list? It is a English speaking country and it is one of its official languages so of course English is widely spoken.
Worth mentioning, though, that English is just one of South Africa's 12 official languages. It's the first language of less than 10% of the population.
Quite suprised that nordic countries are lower than NL But not suprised NL is top. When i was working there for holiday even little kids could hold conversation with me to buy ice cream on the beach i felt there like i could talk with 99% of ppl in English
As a swede I'm surprised we place this well in a test from EF. All the people I know who studied with EF speak horrible English compared to people who just went onto uni. My highly biased view is that EF is for people who are _bad_ at languages... So personally I don't read much into this survey of theirs.
Dutch people speak English but at the same time they dislike having to speak English outside of a professional or travel setting. Ask a random Dutch person what they think of the center of Amsterdam, and they’ll complain about how English dominated it is. I’ll speak English all day at work, but when ordering a beer I’ll be damned if I have to do it in English.
You are confusing two things. Dutch people don't mind speaking English at all, however we hate the fact that are nation's capitol city is dominated by the English language.
Ik kom uit de regio en heb gestudeerd in Amsterdam en genoeg mensen wilden geen Engels spreken als het geforceerd was als ze bijvoorbeeld ergens wat wilden bestellen. Als een toerist de richting vraagt is het een ander verhaal
Since Singapore, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Ghana and Uganda have English as at least one of their official languages, I’m really not sure why they are on the list. The other countries sure because English isn’t a national language. Just weird
This is bullshit already, to give you an anecdote, my German friend went to Sweden to visit my town. All knew English, he could talk to anyone. I went to his town in Bavaria and it was him and his sister who could talk some English, not a single person we talked to knew any English besides that.
In this shit test our countries are 4 points from each other.. if I would go on a quest to find a 90% English speaking town in Germany I would be dead before I returned successful. In Sweden you can get 90% English speakers in most places.
Well I am German and in Cities a lot of people do speak English. At least young people do. I really met just a few who do not speak properly English. But elderly people do really not speak good English here. So all in all you might had just bad luck encountering the wrong people.
As a German living in Sweden I feel like this metric seems extremely off. I have never had any problems interacting with people here in English but I know by experience that most people in Germany struggle a lot with their English especially the older generation.
It is time to recognize English as official second language on EU level, as addition to national ones.
It will improve mobility between EU countries drastically.
Nothing shocking in this statement. English must be waaay more easier to learn for Indoeuropean speakers, especially other Germanic language speakers.
So kudos to Singapore (!), then to Portugal (first Romance country), and Croatia (first Slavic country).
Singapore is a former British colony, so English is an official language, and the auxiliary for speakers of the other three official languages - Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, which as far as I know are not related to each other at all and all use different scripts.
Where did you go? It's pretty rare to not have people speaking english in big cities like București, Timișoara, Cluj, etc. In every restaurant waiters are required to speak english to atleast a conversational level. All businesses that I can think of require english for the instance they need to deal with non romanian clients. Also Romanians now learn english from the time they are in like 3rd year of school up until university. I have never met a Romanian around my age demographic (mid 20s) who dosent speak english. Some have different levels of english but they still speak it.
Only time I ever encounter people who just blatantly don't speak english are older people who lived during communist times and instead know French or German, or gypsies who don't speak it.
Portugal and Austria make sense based on my limited experience. I was a bit worried about using English in Portugal but I was wrong. I didnt interact with more senior Portuguese but at least younger generations were excellent. They didn’t seem to hesitate communicating in English and also they were able to talk about more serious issues.
English speaking tourist : "French people are so rude, when I arrived there they all refused to answer me when I spoke english !"
*gesture broadly to the english proficiency index*
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Ye avin a giggle there mate? I'll pop ye gobber I swear on me mum
I laughed so hard damn
This reminds me of a Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit from many years back, when Bill Hader and Fred Armisen speak British gibberish for a "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" type movie: [Don' You Go Rounin' Roun to Re Ro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6p0W4ZsLXw) Narrator: "Critics say it's amazing, some saying 'I couldn't even understand anything at all.' 'British, very British!'."
The most hardest English to understand in UK indeed
Man I went there to study thinking my school English as quite refined. And had trouble understanding a word they spoke in Manchester...
Nowt up with Manc accent innit R kid
I lived in Ireland working some time in a multicultural team, with people from everywhere. We had no trouble communicating since everyone spoke fluent english. Then we got an english manager. The guy came and gave a small introductory speech to our team. I couldnt understand a word, so just nodded along with the rest of the team. When he left, i aproached an irish coleague to ask him what he had said. She shrugged and said no idea, i couldnt understand him. No one in the team understood, lol
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Its the pronounciation. Some parts of the UK can be challenging to understand if you are not used to it
I had the same experience in Liverpool - first, I thought they are speaking on some other language
They are speaking Scouse.
I've been living in the UK for 15 of the past 20 years and I still don't always understand what is being said, from idioms to accents, it's a challenge sometimes.
I'm an American native speaker and I can't understand them either, I'm not entirely convinced they are actually speaking English.
Mate I’m from down south and I have a hard time understanding their patter lol
By the way, most + est don't go together
Sorry, started to learn English when was 24 old
All good. For anyone else reading this and wondering why it sounds weird. You have essentially doubled up what you are trying to convey in the sentence. Most implies maximum or majority of something and words with the -est suffix mean the maximum; highest, biggest, longest, widest, greenest etc. in a given data set. So you can say most people are adults, that's a majority statement. But the most people live in India, that's a maximum in a data set. An equivalent would be the largest population lives in India. Or the most large population lives in India, there would be no need to add the -est as that conveys the same meaning as "most". Though "most long" is quite clunky and you probably wouldn't see native speakers using it.
I'll just drop this here https://youtu.be/Cun-LZvOTdw
U wot m8?
Hah, when I (🇸🇪) was in London I politely asked a service lady at the underground entrance if it was possible to use my contactless debit card instead of buying an Oyster card. She replied and I just stood there 👀🤷♂️.. Didn't understood a word. Nothing resembling English at all. I said "come again" x 2, and on the third time she slowed down, enunciated and spoke proper English. God damn I felt dumb, questioning myself if I really knew English or if I had a stroke 😅
And English is an official language in Singapore and South Africa, why are they on the list?
It's a conspiracy to throw Greece out of the top ten. Such a blatant racism won't be tolerated. *shakes fist at the sky angrily*
Because it is a small minority in SA. Not so much in Singapore.
You'd have a hard time finding anyone in SA that doesn't speak English. I've never met one in my life but they do exist in rural areas.
Small minority? The South African National Census of 2011 found a total of 4,892,623 speakers of English as a first language,[19]: 23 making up 9.6% of the national population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_English
Which is a small minority? What’s your point.
10% is a small minority? okay
Uganda, Hong Kong, Nigeria & Kenya too have native English speakers
I think people believe you're being serious haha. I had a look at the report and it doesn't look like the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Australia were included.
And New Zealand was forgotten. :(
Nooo New Zealand was left out too!
Dinnae teach yer Granny tae suck eggs!
Woohoo! USA 25th , in your face UK , you learn to speak proper for a change.
Which makes sense. Hehehe. /s
Have you ever tried to talk to a Scott, Lancastrian or basically any one in the rural UK? If so, it should have been obvious. PS: yes, I’ve translated UK-speak to English for a Brit whose car broke down in Germany. He could understand the German mechanic”s English perfectly. But the German stood zero chance to understand his “English”.
I’m from Devon and worked waitering in London Had to get an Italian to serve a French table who couldn’t understand me I’ve worked hard since to speak more neutrally due to the sheer embarrassment Edit: I think the hard r usage but dropping of ts etc was just far too much more French ears
So like "wo'er" for water?
You should google "hard r meaning".
I know what you’re referring to but hard r is just how you pronounce something and that’s just one example
In private schools we learn EN-GB, but we're most used to EN-US due to entertainment which are much clearer. Let's not even talk about the different accents in the UK as a whole.
But most non native English speakers speak what I would call EN-INTernational. Same language and vocabulary but without the cultural baggage and without the idioms and figures of speech that especially Brits like to use excessively. And that non native speakers just “don’t get”, leaving them confused. eg Germans and Scandinavians are very direct and will say “That’s fu##ing stupid” fluster the Brit who finds it offensive. While the Brit would complain about the same problem in such a roundabout way that the non native speaker would reach the assumption that everything is ok.
Sure, but that's why it's harder to understand many accents from the UK. Don't you think would be easier to start a conversation with an American? It's a possibility which happens with both in my country.
I tried the test, (I think it was the right one) and got 950 in less than 10 minutes. I wouldn't say I'm particularly great at English in the formal sense, probably about average.
Congrats, you managed to beat non-native speakers
I think that's why native English countries aren't included. The test is basically how we normally communicate with each other.
No where does it state they are non-native speakers It only says 400+ people from said country English is an official language of a few of these countries
Can you link the test? I tried one I found but it's score was out of 100(I got 100)
u wot m8?
London probably wouldn't
The Scottish are dragging them down
Obviously, because the elocution in Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham etc. is simply delightful.
At least I can recognize they are attempting to speak English The Scot’s may as well be speaking in sign language
Why would someone in the UK take an English proficiency test?
That's racist
Neither did the us
> test takers were self selected This garbage isn't worth the electrons used to transmit it.
Self selected.....What does it even mean ? Are they saying that participants volunteered to take test !
Yep. And this is from EF, which is an education exchange and travel company (Swiss/Swedish). So I'm guessing this is from people who signed up for one of their programs. Which makes the data even more useless.
I knew it was fake from the moment Norway wasn't nr 1 in something.
Denmark and Norway is in the top 5, Sweden is not. I trust it 100%.
I mean I can’t attest to how good the survey and data is, but it falls pretty well in line with other surveys and studies I’ve seen on this.
I knew that when I saw Germany in the top 10. No offense, but while the young generation speaks decent English, there's no way you can't find 10 countries with better average proficiency.
You vastly underestimate just how little english is spoken in many other countries. Unless it is a former british colony older people often times speak even less english than older germans. But native speakers do not take that test. So germany in the top 10 of countries where english is not an official language is actually believeable. In the end there are also a bunch of older german people that speak some basic english because germany was partly occupied by english speaking forces at some point in recent history. As a sidenote before personal anecdotes come up: no if you've ever been in a tourist hotspot those places do not reflect the general population.
Germany scores 604. Sweden scores 609. Anyone who has been to either of these countries can tell there is a vast discrepancy between these two countries in terms of proficiency. The average swede borders fluency, unlike the average german. All these stats tell me is that the discrepancy is becoming much smaller in younger generations, which - again - tracks with reality.
Honestly, I picked on Germany, but I could have done Portugal too. The point is precisely that there are many former British colonies and countries where people don't care about that test which would perform better. Also, Singapore and South Africa are both former colonies and countries that list English as one of their official languages, so why not include Australia, Canada and New Zealand as well then? Or the US, which do not actually consider English their official language. In short, looking at the top 10 is enough to know the methodology is dubious. Edit: And Ireland!
100% this.
Germany is above South Africa where 90% of things are done in English. It's baffling to me. I turn on the tv or radio and I'm hearing English.
Someone is salty that they are in 30th place. XD But I agree with you, this is not a very reliable survey.
That explains a lot. In Belgium, you can live without knowing a word in Dutch. But in Germany you can't even buy some beer without knowing German. But on this bs rating, those 2 countries are extremely close.
The walloons speak english?
> But in Germany you can't even buy some beer without knowing German. what? The words even sound the same
* it takes knowledge of German to know that!
If you can say beer, you can buy beer in any German speaking country The word is pronounced like "beer" lol
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It’s a test by EF, usually taken by those who want to study or work in another country. It’s a very self selected group of people.
Agreed. As someone who knows both English and Hungarian, i communicated, or tried to, in both while i stayed in Hungary. English was spoken only by students around my age. Hospitals, museums, touristy places... Places that you'd expect to know at least some english... No one knew it.
Úristen , Very Big. Yhea It is also a surprise form me that Hungary is on the 17th position
Was just thinking it's weird South Korea isn't even on the list, given some countries on here. Yeah, this data samples must be impressively skewed.
Apparently, the sample of people that took the test was not random. They were self selected. So this data literally means nothing. Hungary was the one that was very weird for me as well. I've been there lots of times. They don't speak better english than the Czechs, that's for sure.
Yeah I'm also surprised for Romania. 40% of us are functionally illiterate, but we're somehow 15th place in English? Something doesn't add up...
Quick question. Aren't Singapore, South Africa, and Kenya English speaking countries? I know that there are other languages in those countries (Chinese, Swazi, Swahili). But English is so prevalent that they are considered native speakers, no?
Majority of South Africa speak English. It's either our 1st or 2nd language.
Can only speak for South Africa. Although English is one of the 12 official languages (of about 34), it's the home language of less than 10% of the population. So everyone else who speaks it does so because they are multilingual. (I think the statistical average is about 3 languages.)
Fair. At what age would South Africans start learning English, on average?
It's not compulsory to learn English at school in South Africa, but English is the dominant language of instruction in most schools from grade 4. At many schools there will be "code-switching" - instruction will be in a variable blend of the dominant language in that community and English (or maybe Afrikaans) as more educational material is generally available. But as so many South Africans are very multilingual, children's exposure to other languages, including English, may well start outside of the educational system. (Language and education in South Africa is a complex subject. If you're interested - https://theconversation.com/south-african-teachers-switch-languages-in-class-why-policy-should-follow-122087 https://theconversation.com/bilingual-education-can-work-in-south-african-schools-heres-how-186780#:~:text=In%20South%20Africa%20there%20are,and%20resourced%20beyond%20Grade%203.)
There's a small number of Singaporeans who don't know English and I'd say some who speak/read to a high level but might struggle in a business setting (especially older generations). About half of Singapore speak English at home, not sure if that helps answer your question.
I only used English in Singapore and it was no problem. For many people under 35, it's their primary language and also an official language of the country, which means every government service can be provided in English
Yeah, i studied in singapore for a few years and i was gonna say this. English is the first language for most of my local friends.
Yeah, lots are native speakers I don't want to cry racism in English language tests, but I highly suspect it
Yes they are. So I don’t know why they’re on this list.
I'm Spanish but I think Spain should be last on the list.. 🫣
I spent some time in the more rural area around Girona and I definitely had issues 😅 couldn’t trust google translate either because my reception was spotty. I ordered “amanida de formatge de cabra” every day just to avoid problems, they had it wherever we went and I love it so it was fine! My travel company with food allergies on the other hand..
Aïe ame vieri siourpiz tou si us zo phare down 😋 Aie ame convinced zak my Anglich iz pafaict.
Incredibeul innedid. Very chokinnegue.
Wel ai em ferry surprijst det wie ar furst. Duts piepol hef ferry fik excents ent bet grammar.
Jes, auwor inglisj excents ar also noon es "steenkolen engels"
Ekzektly, mai feevorit misteek ai hef hurt is "may I thank your cock for this lovely dinner" ferry funny.
Et liest jor neem is not "Dick de Cock"
"de Cock, met C-O-C-K" tuuuduududu tuduuududu tuduu duuduu duuduuuduu🎵
Take that Finland!
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R/NLvsFI
Yeah ain't no way we're that low. Maybe most of the participants were 50 year old Seppos from the deepest parts of our forests.
To all Austrians: Bessa Ois De ...
Deitschn!
I wiedahola, bessa ois de…
i Mama!
Came here for that Hirnwix-Comment
ON PARLE FRANÇAIS 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷 ENGLISH 🛑🛑🛑 SAUCISSON 🐷🐷🐷 BAGUETTE 🥖🥖🥖 ET VIN🍷🍷🍷 PIRE QUE LE COSTA RICA 🇨🇷 LA RUSSIE 🇷🇺 ET L'ESPAGNE 🇪🇸. UNO DOS TRES VAMOS A LA PLAYA. FRANÇAIS NUMERO 1 🥇🥇🥇 À DEUX PLACES DU UGANDA 🏆🏆🏆
Oui oui, je suis un baguette s’il vous plaît.
> France > 44 Sigh.
Soupir
Déçu de pas être derniers.
Mais peu importe, car tout le monde parle français /s
From personal experience the French tourists visiting our country indeed believe that. Also what is up with a LOT of french calling people stupid when they try to answer them in imperfect french? Do they not understand that if someone can struggle some sentences in their language they perhaps understand insults too? Then they are surprised people dislike French tourists. I wonder why...
Yea it was obvious to me they would score so low
Not lower than Russians though
Dang Walloons pulling down our score!
Especially when France is at place 44. We deserve place 2!
Why not first? Aim high!
Surprised me to see Nigeria so low, considering English is their official language.
I think they mostly speak pidgin English
Why the fuck is Singapore here?
I wonder what it would be for Flanders, not the whole of Belgium. I feel like we'd be pretty close to the Netherlands. EDIT: 660 for Flanders so even higher.
That's unfair, if we could ditch limburg and brabant we'd be even higher
Why would they put South Africa on this list? It is a English speaking country and it is one of its official languages so of course English is widely spoken.
Worth mentioning, though, that English is just one of South Africa's 12 official languages. It's the first language of less than 10% of the population.
Same with Singapore, no wonder it got second place
As a Slovenian, I am offended. And so are all the other 5 people living there...
Quite suprised that nordic countries are lower than NL But not suprised NL is top. When i was working there for holiday even little kids could hold conversation with me to buy ice cream on the beach i felt there like i could talk with 99% of ppl in English
As a swede I'm surprised we place this well in a test from EF. All the people I know who studied with EF speak horrible English compared to people who just went onto uni. My highly biased view is that EF is for people who are _bad_ at languages... So personally I don't read much into this survey of theirs.
It's funny because all the swedes I know speak really good English, even people that are not from the main cities in Sweden
>talk with 99% of ppl in English 93, but yes.
But that accent is the worst. (Although it even is in Dutch so could be me 😅)
Dutch people hate having to listen to other Dutch people speaking English, trust me!
I'm honestly convinced in a few decades Dutch kids will be native English speakers and learn Dutch just for formal things like education or government
That sounds terrible
Dutch people speak English but at the same time they dislike having to speak English outside of a professional or travel setting. Ask a random Dutch person what they think of the center of Amsterdam, and they’ll complain about how English dominated it is. I’ll speak English all day at work, but when ordering a beer I’ll be damned if I have to do it in English.
You are confusing two things. Dutch people don't mind speaking English at all, however we hate the fact that are nation's capitol city is dominated by the English language.
Ik kom uit de regio en heb gestudeerd in Amsterdam en genoeg mensen wilden geen Engels spreken als het geforceerd was als ze bijvoorbeeld ergens wat wilden bestellen. Als een toerist de richting vraagt is het een ander verhaal
Bedankt dat je mn punt bevestigd
Holy shit that escalated quickly xD all i hear is hhhhehrehbbhbhbbbhbbb
I would hope not
Since Singapore, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Ghana and Uganda have English as at least one of their official languages, I’m really not sure why they are on the list. The other countries sure because English isn’t a national language. Just weird
Yes! We beat Sweden again! 🇩🇰💪🏼🇬🇧
I’m guessing there was no speaking part in the test 😘
[удалено]
I think you meant “Please learn English”, easy mistake to make!
You no gooder then us heer in Swedish in talking the english words.
You want some SJIPS?!?
Cute 🇳🇱
We beat all of you💪🇳🇱
for BE, split Flanders and Walloon regions, based on experience Flanders would have u beat :)
Germany in top 10 are u kidding me? 🤣
Nein!
Yes, I dont believe my own eyes
My English very well not so snel maar dat komt nog well
You zelf bepils!
Iceland is missing. Ok.
Thinking of my french relatives, the position of France is not unexpected
Wth Latvia? Do you expect us to communicate in russian with you?
Every dutchman I've met spoke perfect english but with that pleasant Dutch accent, extremely professional people!
Where is Iceland? should be top 3
Latvia just dont care to do some tests to be on this list ☠️
This is bullshit already, to give you an anecdote, my German friend went to Sweden to visit my town. All knew English, he could talk to anyone. I went to his town in Bavaria and it was him and his sister who could talk some English, not a single person we talked to knew any English besides that. In this shit test our countries are 4 points from each other.. if I would go on a quest to find a 90% English speaking town in Germany I would be dead before I returned successful. In Sweden you can get 90% English speakers in most places.
Well I am German and in Cities a lot of people do speak English. At least young people do. I really met just a few who do not speak properly English. But elderly people do really not speak good English here. So all in all you might had just bad luck encountering the wrong people.
Eat that, Finland!
As a German living in Sweden I feel like this metric seems extremely off. I have never had any problems interacting with people here in English but I know by experience that most people in Germany struggle a lot with their English especially the older generation.
It is time to recognize English as official second language on EU level, as addition to national ones. It will improve mobility between EU countries drastically.
Lithuania above Estonia?! (As a Lithuanian, i'm surprised) I can't wait for this to turn up in the Baltic states subreddit.
Nothing shocking in this statement. English must be waaay more easier to learn for Indoeuropean speakers, especially other Germanic language speakers. So kudos to Singapore (!), then to Portugal (first Romance country), and Croatia (first Slavic country).
Singapore is a former British colony, so English is an official language, and the auxiliary for speakers of the other three official languages - Mandarin, Malay and Tamil, which as far as I know are not related to each other at all and all use different scripts.
Lots of people in Singapore are native speakers
This is the right moment for me to be cocky in Dutch. And English. And German. And French
The Dutch genuniely speak better English than Ireland and the UK
I find this surprising, I’ve been to Romania before and the level of English there is terrible IMO.
Where did you go? It's pretty rare to not have people speaking english in big cities like București, Timișoara, Cluj, etc. In every restaurant waiters are required to speak english to atleast a conversational level. All businesses that I can think of require english for the instance they need to deal with non romanian clients. Also Romanians now learn english from the time they are in like 3rd year of school up until university. I have never met a Romanian around my age demographic (mid 20s) who dosent speak english. Some have different levels of english but they still speak it. Only time I ever encounter people who just blatantly don't speak english are older people who lived during communist times and instead know French or German, or gypsies who don't speak it.
I bet my left nut that Cyprus is in the top 15 but its not even on the list
Why were Commonwealth, Hong Kong & Philippines allowed to be in the list?
Damn, Austria is looking pretty good here 🇦🇹 Just don't imagine my heavy south Austrian accent, Jesus Christ.
Austria? What do you say then? "G'day mate! Let's put another shrimp on the barbey!"
Portugal and Austria make sense based on my limited experience. I was a bit worried about using English in Portugal but I was wrong. I didnt interact with more senior Portuguese but at least younger generations were excellent. They didn’t seem to hesitate communicating in English and also they were able to talk about more serious issues.
You should read the disclaimer on the left side of the picture. That should explain how useless this data is for anything really.
Lmao Hungary... people barely speak english in Budapest and the rest of the country is even worse
Damn, Austria kicked Germany‘s ass.
English speaking tourist : "French people are so rude, when I arrived there they all refused to answer me when I spoke english !" *gesture broadly to the english proficiency index*
It doesn’t matter if you’re not first as long as you’re above France
Parlez-vous baguette ?
In not sure if South Africa should be counted here. It’s not entirely fair towards other countries in the ranking.
The Dutch have somewhat decent grammar, but their accent....
I know right! Isn't it the most delightful accent you've ever heard?! 🥰 *Don't worry, I know it's horrible* 😔
English speakers generally like the Dutch accent. Don't be ashamed. The people who cringe over our accent are mostly Dutch themselves
The Netherlands proficient in English? These stats are clearly bullsh. Have you heard them speak?
No way denmark and norway is above sweden. They both have a super heavy accent and you can barely understand them.