A newly updated index ranks English proficiency around the world

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/12/04/where-are-the-worlds-best-english-speakers

by respinal • 7 years ago

44 43 7 years ago

I've always intuitively felt that the Dutch were the best non-native English speakers out there, it's nice to see this confirmed with data.

Not surprisingly the areas with native Germanic languages do the best in this survey.

sudosteph• 7 years ago

My favorite anecdote about Dutch people speaking English:

My husband and I were taking a few weeks after college graduation to visit Europe. I had studied French in school, so we made stops in a few different French cities. In one city, Lille, we were chatting in the town square when a group of 3 teenage boys came running up to us. In perfect English, one said "You speak English!! Thank God! We're here on a school trip from (some city in the Netherlands) and need to take a photo with someone here for a scavenger hunt." They admitted that they were completely horrified of the prospect of having to attempt to speak French in France.

mr_custard• 7 years ago

A long time ago, before Analogue Terrestrial TV (OTA) was replaced by Digital broadcasts in the UK, I was visiting a friend in Amsterdam. I was surprised to discover that she was watching BBC television. The signal was strong enough to be received in Amsterdam, and I often wonder if this is why the Dutch are historically better at English because they watched so many British TV shows.

cmrdporcupine2• 7 years ago

I dunno, it's more like ... English, Dutch, and German are West Germanic languages, but unlike German English and Dutch did not undergo the high German consonant shift. So many cognate words that seem odd in German are similar in Dutch.

As a native English speaker who has German family and studied German I always have found that Dutch seems "halfway" between the two languages. I can usually figure out what a sentence means by reading it that way.

PeterStuer2• 7 years ago

In Belgium, a country that got an early lead in cable coverage, there were antennas at the North Coast specifically placed for receiving the BBC broadcasts and feeding it into the analog cable system.

axaxs• 7 years ago

Agreed. As a kid, I once picked a gaming name that was unbeknownst to me a Dutch word. So many other kids would join and start speaking what I presume to be Dutch, and when I said I'm American they'd have a laugh and speak in perfect English.

larnmar• 7 years ago

As an English speaker who knows a bit of German, Dutch basically seems like a random combination of English and German words with a few misspellings thrown in for kicks.

Symbiote• 7 years ago

The Danes are better, at least for speaking and listening.

In Denmark, I can speak English to the cleaner, the security guard, the fast food seller, quite young children, the bus driver, and pensioners. Both in Copenhagen and smaller towns.

In the Netherlands, this has mixed results.

Writing can be mixed in Denmark. They are so confident in their ability, they don't check the result. I suspect few bothered to take the voluntary test this useless survey is based on.

(Source: I live in Denmark, I visit the Netherlands for work.)

hmwhy2• 7 years ago

Highlights and comments:

These results are not comprehensive, however. Nor are they representative. EF’s index is based on the results of a free online test taken by 2.3m volunteers in 100 countries. Only people with an internet connection and time and willingness to take a test are included in the sample...

I almost stopped reading at this point.

Such biases aside, the EF’s index produces results that are interesting...

I was taught that in scientific research one should never claim that her/his own research is interesting, not least because it's something that's up to the audience to decide.

... interesting, if not entirely scientific.

At least they are honest about it not being entirely scientific.

This correlates with another factor: EF repeatedly finds that English skills are highly correlated with connections and openness to the rest of the world.

Openness...? By what measure?

Edit: typo.

lainga• 7 years ago

I don't mean to go all cui bono, but the company behind the study[] has a remarkably consistent knack for getting the message out in mainstream publications (HBR, Bloomberg, Economist) that the world's economies must learn English or fall behind. That may or may not be true, but the company's business is "language training" in 116 countries, seemingly with a focus on teaching English.

[]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_Education_First

madiathomas2• 7 years ago

Maybe they are saying it is much easier to enter the country? I will give an example with my own country -> South Africa. We have more white people than all other Africa countries combined. We have more Chinese people than all other African countries combined. We have more Indians than all other African countries combined. I won't even be surprised if we have more Indians than US percentage-wise. That sounds like a country that is more open to the rest of the world according to me.

However, there are nationalists who aren't welcoming if you are from a poor African country. They only welcome other races expect their own race -> African. It is mostly poor African people who think other Africans are coming to take their jobs. Good thing is that they don't have government support. Unlike in the US where it is the head of state telling people not to come to their country.

I suspect we even make our border to be porous just to allow other people to freely enter the country.

Fezzik• 7 years ago

I would take “openness”, as typed in an Economist article, to mean something like “[a country/government that] does not snuff out opinions contrary to that of the government, sometimes by disappearing, sending to concentration camps, and/or murdering contrarians”. Or something like that.

Also, I wish people would stop doing such mental gymnastics just to complain - your comment is effectively attempting to amplify the shortcomings of the study that are pointed out in the article you are quoting by then quoting them and adding slightly snarky commentary. Why? The author does a fine job framing what the study actually accomplishes, in their opinion, and then assessing its utility.

On that same note, The Economist article is a commentary on the study and not written by the authors of the actual study. So when The Economist says the results are “interesting” that is not Education First (the company behind the study) claiming their own results are interesting... it is an audience member doing so. Please be accurate if you are going to nitpick so aggressively.

The fact is the article does provide interesting commentary on the outcome of a vast and interesting survey while clearly acknowledging the interesting issues with the data.

hmwhy2• 7 years ago

On that same note, The Economist article is a commentary on the study and not written by the authors of the actual study.

You are right, I completely missed that point when I commented and that is now an embarrassing mistake that I can only learn from and remind me to be more accurate in the future.

Also, I wish people would stop doing such mental gymnastics just to complain - your comment is effectively attempting to amplify the shortcomings of the study that are pointed out in the article you are quoting by then quoting them and adding slightly snarky commentary.

I wasn't "attempting" to amplify those shortcomings, I was indeed amplifying those shortcomings.

Once you have acknowledged that there isn't sufficient evidence to make any solid conclusions then the only logical next step is to get more evidence to support or refute your hypothesis instead of coming up with "interesting" commentary.

It's not like the article is asking for help to get evidence to substantiate the study, or tries to give the reader any valuable, fact-based insights. So the fact that the author acknowledges that the study is "not entirely scientific" in multiple paragraphs, then proceed to use a misleading title and come up with conjectures to make the study seem more interesting/increase its value is a huge red flag to me.

Edit: typo.

snowl• 7 years ago

Article is based off https://www.ef.com/__/~/media/centralefcom/epi/downloads/ful...

esharte• 7 years ago

Look how Europe corresponds with this map of which countries dub foreign language TV shows and Movies versus which ones use subtitles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/59zyal/map_of_europ...

dmcdm• 7 years ago

I have a friend whose wife is from the Netherlands, and she confirms this nearly has in-joke status among the Dutch - "we speak English better than the rest of Europe because we're in love with American TV and we can only get it with subtitles".

PeterStuer2• 7 years ago

Correlation for sure. Causation? Maybe in part. The cost of dubbing is very much higher that subtitling. So dubbing was only used when the target market was large enough. Larger language groups are more robust against cultural imperialism due to a more significant internal cultural market. Even science, which has universaly adopted English in Europe, was still written in French and German in their respective countries right up to the 1980s.

TheGallopedHigh• 7 years ago

Is the term cultural imperialism even appropriate here? Cultural adoption might be less loaded.

Leherenn• 7 years ago

I believe that's still the case sometimes for science, though it is declining. It's probably quite dependent on the field.

gumby3• 7 years ago

German pretty much only does dubbing (even for some live shows, amazingly) but is marked as "high proficiency".

Apropos the sampling question: English proficiency is (in my experience) poor outside large German cities.

henrikschroder2• 7 years ago

Interesting that countries where English is an official language scores lower than countries where it isn't, like Singapore, Malaysia, and South Africa.

The full report had a list of cities though, where Kuala Lumpur scored higher than Malaysia, so that's an interesting phenomenon how it's a city thing rather than a country thing.

knzhou• 7 years ago

English is an official language of Singapore, in fact probably effectively the official language, since it's the one everybody has to learn.

lazylizard• 7 years ago

There are plenty of singaporeans older than singapore itself. Nevermind that policy.

lokedhs• 7 years ago

English is an official language in Singapore though. And it's at least partially official in South Africa too.

ajdlinux2• 7 years ago

As others have mentioned, English is an official language in Singapore and South Africa.

As for Malaysia, English is not an "official language" however it is an official language in one state, and it is still an important language in government - particularly in the judiciary, where many cases are still conducted and judgements written in English. More importantly, it's the primary language in most larger private-sector businesses particularly in cities like KL where Malay is less dominant.

---

edit: unless we're interpreting you wrong, and you mean that you're surprised that Northern Europeans do better than some Commonwealth countries - ignoring the obvious massive bias issues with this "study" as a whole, I'd remember that Europe has higher quality education in general than the poorer Commonwealth countries.

henrikschroder2• 7 years ago

Yeah, sorry, I should have flipped the is and isn't so the examples followed the right one...

And you're probably right that the bias in the study skews the results.

Another possible angle is how you measure "correct" English. American English and British English are technically two separate languages with separate rules. Should you measure the correctness of a Singaporean against either of those? Or should you measure them against some Singaporean English standard instead?

madiathomas2• 7 years ago

Even though South Africa has 11 official languages, English is the most official language in South Africa. When speeches are delivered by public officials, they are 99% in English. All official documents have English in it. Even the government official website is in English [1]. It is the only compulsory language at school. All private and urban schools teach English as a first language, then other languages as additional languages. Parents this side make sure their kids can speak English before they speak their own indigenous languages. Not mine though.

[1] https://www.gov.za/welcome-official-south-african-government...

kalleboo• 7 years ago

Singapore also has a lot of (temporary and permanent) immigration, and those immigrants may need to take ESL courses to adapt to Singapore, that would reflect on these results.

hoi• 7 years ago

Since this is based off tests does it stipulate whether there is a diffrence in reading, listening and writing comprehension vs ability to speak? There are many countries where written English is exceptional, but when it comes to conversation, it's lacking.

irrational• 7 years ago

What is up with the gray countries? I spent 2 weeks in Iceland and everyone I met was absolutely fluent in English (strangely they all sounded like Americans - I expected them to have English accents for some reason). It should be marked as high or higher.

kingbirdy• 7 years ago

Gray appears to be countries which primarily speak English (e.g. US, UK) and countries that weren't able to get data (e.g. North Korea)

Geee• 7 years ago

Really weird choice of colors.

natmaka• 7 years ago

The variance is non-neglectable. In China, for example, English proficiency is WAY higher in huge cities (say, Shanghai) than in the countryside!

playing_colours• 7 years ago

I am surprised to find Germany that high in the rank. Outside of large international cities, and particularly in former DDR lands in my experience it is not that good.

Among my neighbours, in an area of Eastern Berlin, far from gentrified places only 1-2 out of 10 adults between 30 and 50 years old can speak English fluently, half can somehow communicate.

dmichulke• 7 years ago

This is relative.

They're not saying "All Germans speak English well", they're saying "In average, Germans speak worse than the Dutch, better than the French and much better than Kuwaitis."

fishnchips• 7 years ago

My experience as well. I visited a client in Berlin this summer. Pretty much everyone at work spoke perfect English and there were even workplace conversations in English between German native speakers, for the benefit of their international coworkers. All the usual touristy places in West Berlin were pretty much the same.

I stayed in Pankow though, which is a residential area of East Berlin, and I literally wasn't able to communicate a word in English. There wasn't much sympathy or patience to be seen when I was trying to speak German either, only annoyance. Which surprised me somehow - I remember living in Denmark people were both supportive and amused when I attempted to communicate in their language.

gumby3• 7 years ago

Amusing German anecdote: my German son went from German school in California (English was taught by native-speaking, non-german-speaking teachers with a California teaching license, and of course spoken outside school) to Germany (English was taught by a native English speaker who spoke no German (moved with her husband to Germany)). What subjects was he behind in when he arrived? English.

Coincidentally his English teacher his last year in California and when he got to Germany were both Australian.

All that being said, outside big cities I haven't really encountered anyone in Germany with strong English.

hwj• 7 years ago

There are German schools in the US?

gumby3• 7 years ago

Sure, and not all are subsidized by the German government. Just as there are French, Japanese, even Swedish schools in various countries all over the world. There are "international" (English as language of instruction, sometimes foreign funded) schools and universities around the world too.

Some are used by business people moved over for a couple of years concerned that their kids won't be able to pass the exams etc if they get out of the "home" system (though I figure if you're only visiting for a couple of years why not sample the local system..though in California that's pretty dire). The other reason is the opposite: the kids are integrated to be able to do things like little league or whatever but need to get some "home" education so they'll be able to move back.

If you live in Palo Alto there are even two German ones close by: one just across the north border in Menlo Park and one immediately south in Mountain View.

durnygbur• 7 years ago

In Europe DACH and Scandinavia are understandable, Portugal and Poland are outliers (here we are serving in your low cost centers).

englishrookie• 7 years ago

Yes! We Dutch are the bestest in English!

ashwinaj• 7 years ago

Yeah right. I was in Beijing last week, how in the world is China ranked alongside India in terms of English proficiency? I could hardly find anyone even at the Beijing Capital airport to speak a coherent English sentence, let alone grammatically correct.

A newly updated index ranks English proficiency around the world

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