This statistic presents the leading European countries by their level of English proficiency as of March 2019. According to data provided by Klazz, Sweden had the highest percentage of people who were proficient in English at ** percent of the population.

Singapore scored 631 out of a maximum of 800 points in the English Proficiency Index 2022, the highest score across the selected Asian countries and territories. In contrast, Thailand reached an English Proficiency Index score of 416 that year.

Argentina scored 562 out of a maximum of 800 points in the English Proficiency Index 2023. That was the highest score among all Latin American countries included in the survey. The Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, also received the highest English proficiency score among all the Latin American cities analyzed. Mexico and Haiti received the lowest scores in the region.

Using data from reports such as the "English Proficiency Index" (EDU) from Education First, one can see the significant impact of culture, education and globalization on the ability of citizens of different countries to speak English.

In 2025, there were around 1.53 billion people worldwide who spoke English either natively or as a second language, slightly more than the 1.18 billion Mandarin Chinese speakers at the time of survey. Hindi and Spanish accounted for the third and fourth most widespread languages that year. Languages in the United States The United States does not have an official language, but the country uses English, specifically American English, for legislation, regulation, and other official pronouncements. The United States is a land of immigration, and the languages spoken in the United States vary as a result of the multicultural population. The second most common language spoken in the United States is Spanish or Spanish Creole, which over than 43 million people spoke at home in 2023. There were also 3.5 million Chinese speakers (including both Mandarin and Cantonese),1.8 million Tagalog speakers, and 1.57 million Vietnamese speakers counted in the United States that year. Different languages at home The percentage of people in the United States speaking a language other than English at home varies from state to state. The state with the highest percentage of population speaking a language other than English is California. About 45 percent of its population was speaking a language other than English at home in 2023.

Mexico is the country with the largest number of native Spanish speakers in the world. As of 2024, 132.5 million people in Mexico spoke Spanish with a native command of the language. Colombia was the nation with the second-highest number of native Spanish speakers, at around 52.7 million. Spain came in third, with 48 million, and Argentina fourth, with 46 million. Spanish, a world language As of 2023, Spanish ranked as the fourth most spoken language in the world, only behind English, Chinese, and Hindi, with over half a billion speakers. Spanish is the official language of over 20 countries, the majority on the American continent, nonetheless, it's also one of the official languages of Equatorial Guinea in Africa. Other countries have a strong influence, like the United States, Morocco, or Brazil, countries included in the list of non-Hispanic countries with the highest number of Spanish speakers. The second most spoken language in the U.S. In the most recent data, Spanish ranked as the language, other than English, with the highest number of speakers, with 12 times more speakers as the second place. Which comes to no surprise following the long history of migrations from Latin American countries to the Northern country. Moreover, only during the fiscal year 2022. 5 out of the top 10 countries of origin of naturalized people in the U.S. came from Spanish-speaking countries.

Buenos Aires, Argentina scored 584 out of a maximum of 800 points in the English Proficiency Index 2023. That was the highest score among all the Latin American cities surveyed. In that year, nine cities in the region socred in the "high proficiency" range (550-599 points).

While English is the official language, it is typically used for governmental, business, and media purposes. In day to day life most people in the country speak Krio, which is a style of Pidgin English or English-based creole language. Krio is the lingua franco for the country and the formal language for those who do not speak English. With the number of different ethnic groups, Krio unites these groups with a common language. The citizens who are fluent in English are among the elite minority and often experience privileges such as economic opportunities that non-English speakers are excluded from. Other common indigenous languages used in the country are Mende, Temne, and Limba. As the official language, English is the only language used in education. It is reported that school children who speak indigenous languages on school premises are punished. Students who fail English classes are not granted admission into college. Attribute Table Field DescriptionsISO3-International Organization for Standardization 3-digit country codeADM0_NAME-Administration level zero identification / nameLANG_FAM-Language familyLANG_SUBGR-Language subgroupALT_NAMES-Alternate namesCOMMENTS-Comments or notes regarding languageSOURCE_DT-Source one creation dateSOURCE-Source oneSOURCE2_DT-Source two creation dateSOURCE2-Source twoCollectionThis feature class was created using Anthromapper consisting of linguistic layers that have been primarily based on The World Language Mapping System (WMLS). Geographical terrain features, combined with a watershed model, were also used to predict the likely extent of linguistic influence. The metadata was supplemented with anthropological and linguistic information from peer-reviewed journals and published books. It should be noted that this feature class only depicts the majority first level languages spoken in a given area; there might be significant populations of other minority language speakers not shown in this dataset.The data included herein have not been derived from a registered survey and should be considered approximate unless otherwise defined. While rigorous steps have been taken to ensure the quality of each dataset, DigitalGlobe is not responsible for the accuracy and completeness of data compiled from outside sources.Sources (HGIS)Anthromapper. DigitalGlobe, November 2014.Ethnologue, “Languages of the World." 2012. Accessed November 2014. http://www.ethnologue.com.World Language Mapping System (WLMS) Version 16. World GeoDatasets, November 2014.Sources (Metadata)Antimoon, “English, French, and Arabic languages in Sierra Leone”. December 2009. Accessed December 2014. http://www.antimoon.com.Central Intelligence Agency. The World FactBook, “Serra Leone”. June 2014. Accessed November 2014. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook.DePauw University. Sierra Leone, “Language”. January 2014. Accessed December 2014. http://www.depauw.edu.National African Language Resource Center (NALRC), “Krio”. January 2014. Accessed December 2014. http://www.nalrc.indiana.edu.

LGA based data for Proficiency in Spoken English by Year of Arrival in Australia by Age, in General Community Profile (GCP), 2016 Census. Count of persons born overseas. G11 is broken up into 4 sections (G11a - G11d), this section contains '25-34 years Speaks other language and speaks English Total Arrived 2006-2010' - '55-64 years Speaks other language and speaks English Very well or well Arrived 2011'. Excludes persons born in 'Australia, (includes External Territories), nfd', 'Norfolk Island' and 'Australian External Territories, nec' and persons who did not state a country of birth. The data is by LGA 2016 boundaries. Periodicity: 5-Yearly. Note: There are small random adjustments made to all cell values to protect the confidentiality of data. These adjustments may cause the sum of rows or columns to differ by small amounts from table totals. For more information visit the data source: http://www.abs.gov.au/census.

SA1 based data for Proficiency in Spoken English by Year of Arrival in Australia by Age, in General Community Profile (GCP), 2016 Census. Count of persons born overseas. G11 is broken up into 4 sections (G11a - G11d), this section contains '25-34 years Speaks other language and speaks English Total Arrived 2006-2010' - '55-64 years Speaks other language and speaks English Very well or well Arrived 2011'. Excludes persons born in 'Australia, (includes External Territories), nfd', 'Norfolk Island' and 'Australian External Territories, nec' and persons who did not state a country of birth. The data is by SA1 2016 boundaries. Periodicity: 5-Yearly. Note: There are small random adjustments made to all cell values to protect the confidentiality of data. These adjustments may cause the sum of rows or columns to differ by small amounts from table totals. For more information visit the data source: http://www.abs.gov.au/census.

Turkey was the European country which had the largest share of its citizens self-reporting that they could not speak any foreign language, with almost 82 percent saying they were unable to do so. The United Kingdom and Bosnia and Herzegovina also had over 60 percent of their citizens self-reporting not being able to speak a foreign language. On the other hand, Slovenia, Sweden, and Estonia all had less than five percent of their populations stating they could not speak another language other than their country's main language. Slovenia, Luxembourg, and Norway were the three countries with the most citizens stating they could speak three foreign languages. On average, 37 percent of EU citizens report speaking one foreign language, 22 percent speak two, and 8.6 percent speak three, while 32 percent report speaking none.

Ireland stands as an outlier, as all citizens of the north-western European country self-reported as speaking a foreign language. This is, however, actually, a result of how the question was asked, as respondents interpreted English as being a foreign language (in the sense of not being native to Ireland), in spite of it being one of the two official languages in the country (alongside Irish) and being spoken by the vast majority of the population in Ireland as their first language.

SA2 based data for Proficiency in Spoken English by Year of Arrival in Australia by Age, in General Community Profile (GCP), 2016 Census. Count of persons born overseas. G11 is broken up into 4 …Show full descriptionSA2 based data for Proficiency in Spoken English by Year of Arrival in Australia by Age, in General Community Profile (GCP), 2016 Census. Count of persons born overseas. G11 is broken up into 4 sections (G11a - G11d), this section contains '25-34 years Speaks other language and speaks English Total Arrived 2006-2010' - '55-64 years Speaks other language and speaks English Very well or well Arrived 2011'. Excludes persons born in 'Australia, (includes External Territories), nfd', 'Norfolk Island' and 'Australian External Territories, nec' and persons who did not state a country of birth. The data is by SA2 2016 boundaries. Periodicity: 5-Yearly. Note: There are small random adjustments made to all cell values to protect the confidentiality of data. These adjustments may cause the sum of rows or columns to differ by small amounts from table totals. For more information visit the data source: http://www.abs.gov.au/census. Copyright attribution: Government of the Commonwealth of Australia - Australian Bureau of Statistics, (2017): ; accessed from AURIN on 12/3/2020. Licence type: Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia (CC BY 2.5 AU)

Of the 45 men who have held (or will hold) the title of President of the United States, 21 of them have, to some degree, spoken a foreign language (i.e. one that was not English). The most commonly spoken foreign languages were Latin and Greek, which were both spoken to some extent by at least ten presidents, while a further five had some knowledge of Latin only. The majority of those who studied these languages were required to do so in order to gain entry to educational institutions, although there are some reports that President John Adams had worked as a Greek and Latin teacher before taking office, while James A. Garfield was a professor of these subjects in Hiram College, Ohio. There are also more anecdotal claims that Garfield (who was ambidextrous) could write in both languages simultaneously with each hand. Martin Van Buren is notable as he was the first U.S. president born following U.S. independence; which may make it more surprising that he is the only U.S. president who did not speak English as a first language, instead growing up in a Dutch-speaking community in New York, while learning English in school.

Jefferson's boasts Three U.S. presidents, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, appear to have been fluent in at least three foreign languages, while Jefferson and Adams had some knowledge of a number of other languages. Jefferson famously boasted to Adams once that he had learned Spanish in just 19 days, by using a just a grammar book and a copy of Don Quixote, although Adams expressed doubts over the legitimacy of these claims. Jefferson was known, however, to study somewhat uncommon languages, and was known to translate documents into Old English, while books in Arabic, Irish Gaelic and Welsh were found in his personal library after his death.

Modern presidents Of the six currently-living U.S. presidents, President Trump and Biden are the only without some proficiency in a foreign language. President Carter is said to have had a fluent grasp of the Spanish language, and has continued to practice it in recent years (although he often downplays his own abilities when interviewed about it), while President George W. Bush has made some public addresses (partly) in Spanish. President Clinton studied German in university, is said to speak it fluently, and has even made public addresses in German while in Berlin. President Obama was said to have become fluent in Indonesian as a child, when living in the country between the ages of six and ten; this is one of the few non-European languages (along with Hebrew and Mandarin) to have been spoken by a U.S. president, although Obama has also downplayed his proficiency in the language while in office, sometimes claiming not to speak any foreign languages at all.