What every European country is Worst at

I think Denmark can probably live with the hardship of having the fewest Zaras per capita.

 

They are only counting members of the EU, not all European countries.

 

I don't think France has any issue with lowest English proficiency.

 

Bof.

You're quite right. And I think it would be interesting to see which country came bottom on proficiency in any second language (rather than just English). My money would be on Britain.

 

Actually, I'm surprised Britain didn't come bottom in English proficiency....

 

it started going downhill when lennon-mccartney wrote yeah, yeah, yeah, instead of yes, yes, yes.

 

Dang, some of those things might be a "Best" instead of a "Worst". Lowest number of hospital beds may not be a bad thing.

 

A few years ago, I needed students to work for me part-time on a media-monitoring project for a client. I posted adverts at the best universities in several countries across the Asia-Pacific region: I needed people on the ground who could buy hard copies of newspapers. The CVs (resumés) and cover letters were interesting. The best English came from the Singaporeans. After them, it was the Hong Kongers, the Malaysians, and, perhaps surprisingly, the South Koreans. The Australian applications were almost universally appalling.

 

USA OWNS low second-language skills

(imagine a waving-flag gif here)

The thread-title pronoun should have been 'each' not 'every'. Different meanings, but as it was simply ported by Chuck Dot, I call no foul.

 

Did no Americans apply because you didn't advertise in our territory, or because we just couldn't bother to apply?

I call dibs for USA on low first-language skills as well.

That is now normal modern 'murcan, which bears less resemblance to the Queen's English every passing year.

 

I only needed people in Asia and Australasia. I'm sure that, if I'd been accepting applications from those markets, the Americans and the British would have been as shocking as the Australians were.

 

So am I!

We both know what you're talking about. The UK isn't all city gents in bowler hats and kindly upper class toffs. It's also got a significant number of chavs/hooligans/thugs, and their command of the language leaves a lot to be desired. I found that the Dutch, Danes, Swedish and Norwegians speak English better than must Brits do.

 

Why learn another language when international English is the language of choice around the world, and often the second official language of most other places.

Sure, being able to speak Russian or Chinese might have benefits, but they're both difficult languages to learn and likely have native speakers who can speak English well. All nations choose English as a second language. Why should an English speaker complicate their lives learning other languages? I bet many Aussies don't learn Aboriginie just for the rare occassion they come across a fellow countryman who can't speak English. It's the same here in Europe unless you're planning living elsewhere.

If the Worlds international language was Esperanto, then I imagine many Brits would learn it.

 

Denmark sounds like a pretty tough place: only two Zaras stores!!!

 

Yes, I've got Dutch and Belgian friends who speak and write English perfectly. A lot of them say that part of the reason was that kids' TV in the Netherlands and Belgium was rubbish, but because Northern Belgium and all of the Netherlands are so flat, they could pick up Children's BBC, so that's what they grew up with.

There is an education component too, though. A year or two ago, I saw a piece on the BBC about a Finnish heavy-metal band whose members all had Down's Syndrome. The reporter interviewed them in English, and they all answered in excellent English.

 

That is certainly part of the reason that small countries are good at English: if you're Finnish or Icelandic, you're not going to get to speak to many people unless you learn a foreign language.

I'm not sure the linguistic empire will last forever, though. We don't all still speak Latin, and French had a good go at being the global second language too, before it fell by the wayside (except in North Africa). Spanish has a good shot at becoming the leading business language this century, too.

And I, for one, make a lot more money - and have a much more interesting life - because of the foreign languages that I speak. I know that doesn't apply to everyone.

Very few people outside of Australia know this, but there isn't one Aboriginal language. While about 600 languages have become extinct over the last 200 years, there are still 150 languages in daily use (although many are very rare). They're not just dialects of a single language group either (in the way that English, German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish are dialects of Teutonic); many are from different language groups.

 

probably all be speaking chinese someday.

 

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