Knowledge of English is a big plus when traveling or when moving to another country. But sometimes it doesn’t help. In which European countries may difficulties arise for English-speaking tourists?
English is the most widely spoken second language in the world and is often helpful when moving to a new location until you master the local language. Every year, the international educational company Education First (EF) collects data on countries by level of English language proficiency in its English Proficiency Index (EPI).
Analyzing the results of the 2.2 million adults who took EF’s standardized English tests in 2022, the company assigns each country a rating out of 800 points. How will things look in 2023?
Residents Netherlands again became leaders with 647 points, demonstrating better English skills both in Europe and among the 113 countries around the world where the study was conducted.
To the top countries with “very high level of proficiency” Austria entered, ranked 3rd in the world with 616 points. Next come the Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Norway and Sweden, followed by Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Croatia and Greece.
Among European countries with “high level of proficiency” Also speaking English are Poland (13th place in the world), Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Estonia, Serbia, the Czech Republic and Switzerland (30th place).
But France has dropped in the rankings compared to 2021, when it was in the “high proficiency” category and ranked 31st in the world. In 2022 it turned out to be already at a “moderate level”, scoring only 541 points (34th place). In 2023, it lost another 9 positions in the ranking and dropped to 43rd place in the world, receiving 531 points – the lowest among all Nordic countries included in the study.
Some of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations have only “moderate proficiency” in English. Spain and Italy fell into this category, scoring 535 points and ranking jointly 35th in the world, and in Europe 32nd and 33rd, consistent with their 2022 positions.
However, although Italy, Spain and France rank lower than many European countries, English proficiency levels in their capitals are high.
They were slightly ahead of Georgia and Belarus, which took 32nd and 33rd places in the world. Other European countries ranked in the “moderate” category include Moldova (35th), Albania, Russia, Ukraine and Armenia (48th).
But there are countries where they will have great difficulty understanding you if you speak English – these are Turkey (66th place) and Azerbaijan (83rd place), in both countries “low level of language proficiency”.
Europe dominates the top half of the index, yet English proficiency across the continent has declined this year, with some countries with high and very high English proficiency performing worse. But overall, European countries have shown steady improvement over the long term.
The study also demonstrated notes Euronews that English language proficiency among 18-20 year olds has fallen sharply around the world since 2020 – due to disruptions in education during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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