English is considered the most common language globally because it is the most often used in international communication. Therefore, when traveling abroad, many tourists are sure that knowledge of the English language will help them solve many issues at the place of rest.
However, as the latest data of the annual English Proficiency Index for 2023 show, not all popular tourist countries are doing well with knowledge of English.
Analyzing the results of 2.2 million adults who took EF English language standardized tests in 2022 in 113 countries around the world, each country was assigned a rating out of a maximum of 800 points.
As a result, the rating was topped by the Netherlands, whose residents scored 647 points. In total, ten European countries made it to the top 12 (countries with very high competence in the English language): Austria (3), Denmark (4), Norway (5), Sweden (6), Belgium (7), Portugal (8). Germany (10), Croatia (11), Greece (12). Singapore took the second place, and South Africa took the ninth place.
18 countries were in the second category (high competence), including most of Ukraine’s neighbors: Poland (13), Romania (15), Hungary (17) and Slovakia (18). European countries such as Finland (14), Bulgaria (16), Lithuania (21), Luxembourg (22), Estonia (23), Serbia (24), Czech Republic (26) and Switzerland (30) also fell into this category.
Ukraine fell into the third category (average competence), taking the 45th place with 530 points. This is 31 out of 34 places among the European countries represented in the rating – below only Armenia (48), Turkey (66), and Azerbaijan (83), the last two were in the fourth category (low competence). At the same time, many popular European tourist destinations were in the third category: Georgia (32), Spain, Italy, Moldova (all three shared the 35th row), Albania (39), and France (43).
Well, the worst situation with English is in the Democratic Republic of Congo (113), Tajikistan (112) and Yemen (111). In total, 22 countries were in the fifth category (very low competence), including Uzbekistan (93), Thailand (101) and Kazakhstan (104).