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English proficiency index 54 countries | ||
Tags: Language Map/Atlas | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 15 08 February 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
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It is true that people in poor countries without computer access probably won't get a chance to take the test, and outside some occupations in typical tourist areas they will almost certainly be even worse at English than their more prosperous countrymen. So in the pour countries the ratio of respondents with at least a shimmering of English skills will be overestimated because the non-respondents are left totally out and those who answer aren't representative.
When I wrote that people in rich countries are favoured I was thinking more in terms of getting the chance to respond at all and after the dust has settled: to get a correct picture of the situation in each country. But in retrospect I can see that this wasn't clear, and both Ogrim and Arekkusu have interpreted the situation correctly if the point is to find out how to boost the score in a given country - you can just exclude those groups who are most likely to lower it. PS: it is also interesting to compare Malaysia and Thailand - two neighbours, and both with a lot of tourism. It can't be the special alphabet of Thai alone because then India with all its weird writing systems would have no English speakers at all. I don't even know what a Thai keyboard looks like, but the more difficult it is to access Anglophone homepages the higher the proportion of good English speakers among those who somehow got through to take the test should be. And the statistics don't go in that direction.. Edited by Iversen on 13 February 2013 at 2:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4948 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 10 of 15 09 February 2013 at 3:31am | IP Logged |
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I wonder if the conspicuously high ranking of Argentina compared to all the other Latin
American nations has to do more with demographical quirks than true widespread English teaching. Argentina was very influenced by British Isles immigration, the biggest influx of British people to a non-British nation/former colony was to Argentina. While not a big proportion of the overall immigration, they had a disproportionate influence in the education sector, and there are MANY bilingual "British" schools across all major argentine cities. Most have morning regular curriculum in Spanish and then English in the aftertoon. Further, this model was taken by schools not founded by the British community. Thus, those taking the test are apt to score rather well. But is it really widespread the access to English instruction? I don't know. I bet if they did an Italian or German proficiency test Argentina would also end up with absurdly higher results than the rest of the neighborhood. Unless they took such issues into account. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 15 09 February 2013 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
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A lot depends on the country's situation. Having English as an official language does
not guarantee it is spoken fluently. In India for instance, you have Hindi being the official language but you also have at least 14 others also recognized. In a complex web of somewhat related but unintelligible languages you can have someone who speaks Punjabi and another who speaks Tamil in the same room and they would have to switch to English to understand each other. English being the only European language in India it goes by a totally different set of vowels & consonants so one wouldn't expect an average Indian to be able to imitate a British or American accent very well. Besides there is still a lot of Indians who are uneducated. In Africa you go to a country like Kenya or Nigeria you have local languages that are unrelated to English. Even though English is 1 of the official languages due to historical association with England, there are many Africans who speak with their native accents. Hong Kong was once a British colony before 1997 when it reverted to Chinese rule. On the street level there are not many school children who can communicate fluently in English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Marikki Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5494 days ago 130 posts - 210 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Spanish, Swedish Studies: German | Message 12 of 15 10 February 2013 at 9:13pm | IP Logged |
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I was a tad surprised that women speak better English almost everywhere, although "girls are better than boys in languages" has been the axiomatic truth in Finnish schools as long as I remember.
However, some surprising news have emerged just recently: nowdays boys outperform girls in Finnish high schools in one subject, and that is English. The supposed reason is that boys learn English from computer games. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AML Senior Member United States Joined 6824 days ago 323 posts - 426 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 13 of 15 12 February 2013 at 5:50pm | IP Logged |
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I noticed Israel is missing from the list. It would surely be ranked in the "Very high" or "High" proficiency lists if it were included. I've spent a lot of time in both Israel and Germany, and, for comparison's sake, the Israelis are better at English overall than the Germans (whom I love!).
Almost everyone in Israel knows English, many to a very high level. This shouldn't come as a surprise, though, considering they learn it from an early age in school and are tested on their English abilities as a requirement to get into their own universities. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4650 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 14 of 15 12 February 2013 at 8:15pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, Poland ranks #10 and Czech Republic is also very high. I'm surprised. Nordic countries doing very well doesn't surprise me, as they have English movies subtitled only, so they actually learn a lot by just watching their TV.
But the methodology is weird and I agree that it does exclude poorer countries. Look at Yemen - is it on the list at all? There is a Yemen-America Language Institute, which I suppose leads to really good English among its members (I know one personally), but the method excludes Yemen pretty much. EDIT: And I don't understand taking non-natives from Thailand and Singapore. Silly. Completely unreasonable. I think it was done on purpose to show how poor Asia is. Edited by Zireael on 12 February 2013 at 8:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 15 of 15 19 February 2013 at 12:25pm | IP Logged |
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I am not surprised by Turkey's fairly low ranking. I have known hotel workers in central Istanbul (ie. not some remote village where foreigners rarely venture) to have no English at all.
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