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Top 10 European Countries by English Proficiency

Name the countries in Europe with the highest % of people who can speak English, either as a native or additional language.
According to Wikipedia
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: December 17, 2019
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First submittedJune 1, 2017
Times taken52,049
Average score80.0%
Rating4.73
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%
Country
98
Ireland
98
United Kingdom
90
Netherlands
90
Norway
89
Malta
%
Country
86
Sweden
86
Denmark
73
Austria
70
Finland
70
Germany
+87
Level 59
Jun 2, 2017
Maltaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh
+25
Level 77
Sep 19, 2017
Aaaaaustriaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!
+16
Level 28
Jan 8, 2018
Austria was the only one I missed, I thought another hub of international cooperation like Switzerland, would be the one I was missing.
+4
Level 62
Feb 16, 2020
Norwaaaaaaaaaaaah!
+7
Level 28
Apr 16, 2020
Irelaaaaaand! and the UuuuuKkkkkkkk! (Yeah I missed those 2 but got every thing else.)
+5
Level 68
Sep 19, 2017
Nothing to do with your comment, but as happy as I am that comment likes are now a thing, I'm sad that only comments on new quizzes will ever get likes. Kalbahamut had some great ones I'd "like" to find and "like".
+3
Level 66
Mar 20, 2020
Huh? It is not like quizzes that were made in the past are locked, or that you can't like comments that were made before this was implemented. I don't "year-discriminate" I ve liked many comments as old as 2013 and I think 2012 even (and 2019/2020 might not even be the top receiving year for my likes, I have a feeling it is 2018)
+1
Level 52
Sep 7, 2023
Netherlaaaaaandsss
+9
Level 87
Jun 2, 2017
Not Iceland? Who else speaks Icelandic??
+19
Level 74
Jun 4, 2017
Danish is a common second language in in Iceland.
+10
Level 77
Sep 19, 2017
I like Icelandic even though I don't speak it. Just saying Eyjafjallajokull impresses people :)
+10
Level 45
May 28, 2020
Sorry, could you repeat that?
+2
Level 59
Jan 4, 2023
The only Icelandic word I know, because my geography teachter taught me that 10 years ago. It is the name of one of the largest shield volcano's in Iceland and the name is translated to 'shieldvolcano'.
+5
Level 72
Jan 5, 2023
Your name is also one of the only Polish words I know
+17
Level 71
Jun 3, 2017
I am continually amazed at the abilities of some Nations to speak other languages, I have Dutch and German friends that speak English as well as any English people, better than some. Not just correct, but using regional jargon as well.
+5
Level 37
Jun 9, 2017
If you are surrounded by countries that speak different languages, you tend to have the language taught to you in school. The ad-

vantage (or, in reality, the disadvantage) of being born in the United States is that we are surrounded by "countries" (read states) that

speak English. Even so, some states are advanced enough to require the teaching of foreign languages in their High School and Colleges/Universities.

+15
Level 75
Jun 9, 2017
I think there's also a significant difference between countries whose dominant languages aren't usually dubbed over English-language tv and movies. Dubbing does nothing to teach language; subtitling does lots.
+4
Level 63
Jun 12, 2017
As for Germany pretty much everything is dubbed. I like to watch movies in English though (if that's the original language of the movie) because it feels more authentic to me. This and chatting with foreigners in English probably improved my English. I mean I wasn't bad at school but learning or improving a language through something you enjoy is way easier and more efficient.
+9
Level 75
Sep 19, 2017
We had to take a foreign language in my high school back in the '60s, and I took two years of Spanish. However, I can remember very little of it now. Even my daughter who majored in French, did study abroad in France, and has vacationed there more than once now has trouble remembering the language. I have a friend who grew up in Germany but has been in the US over twenty years. She says she is losing some of her native language. I think with language it holds true, "Use it or lose it."
+6
Level 76
Sep 19, 2017
After my first 30 years in Germany, I've been living the last 12 years or so in the UK. Luckily I still have a habit of talking to myself a lot in my native language, so I never forget it. :)
+6
Level 73
Sep 19, 2017
I work internationally on a fairly constant basis. My experience is consistent with these statistics, although it is hard for me to imagine who the 10% of Dutch are who are not English proficient. Damn near 100%, if you ask me. And much higher in Germany and Austria. Yes, I have observers' bias, because I generally am in contact with other businesspeople or folks at airports/restaurants/hotels or other service providers that generally will have contact with English speakers. But, pretty much, English is so invasive due to the cultural impact of the US, even those who are not 'proficient' have a decent working knowledge.
+4
Level 66
Jan 15, 2019
I dont think it has that much to do with the us at all. My contact with the english language has mainly come from books, and later on having the television on the bbc channel (I never have the tv on any of the national channels, it is either bbc, discovery, or national geographic, and when we still received it, animal planet). So I dont see where the us comes into that.

ok if you watch movies a lot, I suppose the biggest share of those comes from the us.

+2
Level 88
Feb 12, 2020
Apocryphal, but "discovery, or national geographic, and when we still received it, animal planet" is "where the us comes into that".
+2
Level 64
Jul 24, 2021
It really isn't the cultural impact of the US that brought English proficiency to its current levels in Northwestern Europe, because that phenomenon predates even the US' existence as a country. Back in the 18th century, Dutch and Danish colonies in the Caribbean already used English as their lingua franca for convenience's sake, and they could count on Dutch and Danish officers and government officials to speak English. Of course the sheer number of people speaking English in the Netherlands, Denmark and other countries has gone up since, but that has more to do with the rise of universal education in the 19th and early 20th centuries than with the rise of the US as a cultural influence. In fact, in most European countries, the variety of English that is taught in schools is very clearly British English, not American English.
+4
Level 76
Jun 3, 2017
Only 98% in the UK? That means there over a million people in the UK who cannot speak English even as an additional language.
+9
Level 57
Jun 6, 2017
Mostly recent immigrants
+5
Level 79
Aug 8, 2017
to whom everyone else is a recent immigrant...
+4
Level 76
Sep 19, 2017
If there are any Welsh people who can't speak English, the numbers must be in the double figures at most. I was born in Wales and spent the first 21 years of my life there, but have never met anybody who can only speak Welsh.
+2
Level 51
Sep 19, 2017
Don't forget Scottish Gaelic - although admittedly, if you know Scottish Gaelic but don't know English and you live in the U.K., you're not going to fare too well.
+3
Level 59
Sep 25, 2017
I met one Welsh person who couldn't speak English, and that was in 1995 and she was very old at that point. She was a rarity even then. I seriously doubt there is more than a handful of monoglot Welsh speakers these days, if any at all.
+3
Level 79
Apr 26, 2018
There are quite a few in North Wales especially who can 'speak' English but really struggle with it.
+7
Level 37
May 23, 2018
It's pretty much a daily occurrence that I meet someone unable to speak English in London, whether in a Korean shop, Indian shop or someone just on the streets. It personally doesn't bother me though, I'll be leaving the UK for a country where I barely speak the language so I can't exactly by a hypocrite about it.
+4
Level 60
Aug 28, 2017
for some quirky reason of my own I missed united kingdom?
+2
Level 48
Aug 25, 2020
yeah me too
+2
Level 72
Sep 5, 2017
Surprised not to see France on this list.
+28
Level 71
Sep 19, 2017
I'm not.
+3
Level 57
Sep 19, 2017
they only like to speak french
+5
Level 67
Sep 19, 2017
Parisians usually speak English, but it is much less common in the rest of the country.
+2
Level 66
Jan 15, 2019
it is kind of known for not (willing to) speaking enlgish
+1
Level 37
Apr 7, 2019
^ Exactly! I'm sure that English is offered as a second or third language in all European countries (I know that I had a choice of English, German, French and Spanish). Just about all educated Europeans have at least a working knowledge of English.
+3
Level 48
May 7, 2019
French might know English but would never admit it.
+1
Level 76
Jun 28, 2020
French is a completely different language family from English, so it is harder to learn. All of the countries in the quiz have the same language family.
+2
Level 74
Feb 23, 2023
Not Finland
+1
Level 83
Feb 13, 2023
I was, briefly, a language assistant in France (teaching 15-16 year olds). While a handful of students in each class were good at English, the rest had a pretty low standard of English, no different from the standard of French in my GCSE class back in England. Even the English teachers were of varying standard, with two of them speaking it fluently, but the other three speaking it with an at times incomprehensible French accent.
+1
Level 57
Sep 19, 2017
only 98% in Great Britain ???
+5
Level 51
Sep 19, 2017
Well, it's better than the rate in the U.S. Very few people speak Native American these days.
+3
Level 37
Sep 19, 2017
NATIVE American? - Do you mean Navajo, Cherokee, Cree, Mohican or some other?
+2
Level 88
Feb 12, 2020
Those pesky Angles and Saxons and Nor(se)mans really cut into the people who are fluent in native languages of Britain too.
+1
Level 63
May 15, 2023
...you do know that their population is not homogeneous? There are those that speak Scottish, Irish, Gaelic, etc.
+4
Level 88
Sep 19, 2017
Actually missed UK because I thought it was "besides the UK"..
+3
Level 45
Sep 19, 2017
Same here. Doh...must read the question!
+4
Level 60
Sep 19, 2017
I am now a US citizen but originally from Belgium. We studied 4 languages in school and I studied Italian later on. Love it.
+5
Level 65
Sep 20, 2017
Would really love to see the figures for the microstates: Monaco, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, San Marino, and the Vatican (all 600 priests that live there or whatever). Kinda surprised none of them made the list.
+2
Level 86
Jul 21, 2018
Yeah, those were some of my first guesses.
+2
Level 30
Nov 13, 2017
Germany on the list instead of Poland? Impossible! When I went to Germany literally nobody spoke English throughout the country!
+5
Level 86
Jul 21, 2018
Wow. Your trip to Germany must have been busy. And probably not a lot of fun.
+2
Level 37
Apr 16, 2018
Depends on where you go in the countries you visit. In the major cities the inhabitants speak English (even in France where they pretend not to, perhaps because they take such pleasure in making fun of Americans' attempt to speak French, that they fear the same treatment from Americans when they attempt English) but in rural areas most of the inhabitants speak some form of their native language.
+1
Level 54
Jun 9, 2019
Just because it is many in the nordic countries who sprak english do not sprak goot english. Meant speeak good. The quality is bad, but good enouff to communicaite with oters
+1
Level 65
Aug 27, 2019
In rea life, speaking from experience as a central european residence, I can confirm that in Switzerland you are way more likely to find English speakers than in both Germany and Austria.

Not sure where this data is coming from.

+1
Level 49
Dec 9, 2019
I forgot Denmark out of all countries!!!

Love this quiz, nonetheless. I know where to go now when I visit Europe xD

+2
Level 35
Jan 22, 2020
I visit Germany often and have never found one single person who could not speak decent English. However in France and Spain you can find yourself struggling sometimes.
+3
Level 82
Feb 24, 2020
Kinda surprised not to see Iceland. I feel like it would easily make 80%, but I can't find the figures. In my experience pretty much everyone there speaks English.
+1
Level 52
Jan 25, 2022
Same here. Lived there for 6 months and never encountered anyone who wasn't at least moderately fluent in English.
+1
Level 67
May 19, 2021
I am shocked to see Finland. I thought the Uralic language of Finnish was super distant from English, so seems like a lot of work to put in to have so many people know it.
+2
Level 49
Nov 3, 2021
How is it so shocking? Lol you realise that we hear and see English literally EVERYWHERE so it's kinda hard not to learn it, and this is coming from a native Finnish speaker.
+2
Level 70
Jan 8, 2022
Similarity to English is not the only factor - another major one is the size of your linguistic community and the subsequent need to learn another means of communication. Spanish, French or Russian speakers for instance speak less English overall because they don't have as much need to speak it as their native language has a large community. And in that regard, native English speakers are the most monolingual group by far.
+2
Level 28
Feb 23, 2022
What's the source for this? I don't believe that 30% or more of people in Australia (or, even more, New Zealand) can't speak English. Nor does the wikipedia page you get when you google "english proficiency" - it looks completely different to this quiz ...
+5
Level 58
Jul 1, 2022
Australia and New Zealand are not "countries in Europe"
+1
Level 63
May 15, 2023
I don't believe that Australia or New Zealand is in Europe.
+3
Level 68
Sep 11, 2022
Maybe a thumbnail change?
+1
Level 70
May 23, 2023
Wonder what's the percentage for Vatican City
+1
Level 49
Aug 18, 2023
What about Iceland?
+2
Level 56
Oct 25, 2023
98% of Icelandics can speak English. When I went to Iceland literlaly every Icelandic I talked to spoke english...
+1
Level 68
Jan 31, 2024
Agreed. When I was there for 2 weeks, I didn't meet a single Icelandic who didn't speak English.
+1
Level 56
Feb 7, 2024
You forgot to add Iceland. 98% of Icelanders can speak English and an overwhelming amount of those people are fluent in the language.