- cross-posted to:
- europe@jlai.lu
- cross-posted to:
- europe@jlai.lu
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Whenever a few Europeans from different countries come together, there’s a joke that inevitably gets told:
Someone who speaks many languages is multilingual. Someone who speaks two languages is bilingual. Someone who speaks one language is English.
That’s what happens when your language becomes popular enough to become the lingua franca. It would be the same for any other language.
It’s hard, but true.
The uk didn’t even make it on the list, how embarrassing.
Fake news. Everyone in France speaks English when English speakers aren’t around. They only speak French out of spite.
Everyone in France speaks English the moment an English speaker tries to speak French.
My French sucks. I would intentionally butcher French just so they’d roll their eyes and start speaking English.
French only speak “English”, not English…
That checks out for Quebec as well.
The French refuse to learn English out of spite, not ability. Infact I wouldn’t put it past a Frenchman to be completely fluent in English but when asked say they don’t understand a word, just because they despise the British so much.
“You don’t frighten us, English pig-dog! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person. I blow my nose on you”
“you empty-headed animal, food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”
Fetchez la vache!
That is absolute nonsense.
This would really be more fun if UK were included in the list because you already know it wouldn’t be on top lol
I’m a native English speaker and I struggle to understand my English/Scottish friends if they’re talking too fast. I’ve watched British TV with subtitles.
I look at this and I think you know, not everything needs to be a bar chart… this is different, it’s creative, but then again, it would be better as a bar chart.
dataisugly
It would be better as a map.
Yes, you may be right, given how there seems to be some geographic patterns in the level of fluency. A map would show these better. A bar chart would be better for making visible actual absolute differences in scores. But yeah, a map would be good, I agree.
Map with colour gradient is how I would do it.
And maybe a bar graph along the bottom ordered greatest to smallest.
Yes, possibly, for the best of both worlds
I would love to see the USA’s test results on this chart.
Where does the UK and Eire come on this?
It was skewed off the bottom of the scale by scouse.
Yeah the obvious joke is “United Kingdom: DNF”
deleted by creator
Was curious how Belgium would score by language region.
Seems the Flemish part scores higher than The Netherlands while Wallonia drags everything down.
French speakers being French speakers. Case in point: France scores lower than fucking Russia
This explains why French people are always speaking French in game chat in Rocket League as if French is the Lingua Franca lmfao so silly.
Every time they utilize the chat it’s also to be unprovokedly toxic which is another mystery. Maybe they’re just that unhappy? Something bad in the water?
Lingua Franca
I wheezed
French used to be the lingua franca of diplomacy for hundreds of years, actually. It was replaced by English only fairly recently.
That’s the joke! ^^
Toutes mes éxcuses
Fairly unsurprising. English is literally harder if your native language is a romance language than if it is a germanic language. Same is true for germanic native speakers who try to learn a romance language.
Except Flemish people tend to speak good French while people from Wallonia barely speak Dutch. I agree with your statement in general, but in the case of Belgium there’s a lot more to it than that.
As a native English speaker, I don’t know the language rules in English, I merely speak the language. I suppose the idea is that I can think with the same grammer in English as I can in Dutch or German (except when I can’t) than with romance languages.
But at the same time, I feel like the Spanish language, is a fairly easy language for non native speakers to learn. It’s phonetical, it’s logical, it doesn’t have ridiculous numbers or times for the clock.
But at the same time, I feel like the Spanish language, is a fairly easy language for non native speakers to learn. It’s phonetical, it’s logical, it doesn’t have ridiculous numbers or times for the clock.
I tried learning Spanish in school for about six years. IDK, maybe most other languages would be even harder, but I found it pretty hard, especially understanding spoken Spanish.
It’s hard to believe Germany is so high on the list. I visit regularly and even worked there for a while, where are all the fluent English speakers hiding?
The EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) attempts to rank countries by the equity of English language skills amongst those adults who took the EF test. It is the product of EF Education First, an international education company, and draws its conclusions from data collected via English tests available for free over the internet. The index is an online survey first published in 2011based on test data from 1.7 million test takers. The most recent edition was released in November 2023.
So the data is not representative for the entire population of a country.
Currently in university or so, and there is a large countryside vs. city gap.
In my experience there has been a relatively recent massive improvement in English skills by the younger generation. Anyone 35+ is still very much behind though. As an elder Millenial myself, it actually caught me on a wrong foot carreerwise as being able to speak English well is no longer considered to be a selection criteria for many jobs, because so many can do it and it is assume a given.
I guess this (and the data being from a very selected part of population ie. test takers) would explain my experiences with Ruhrpott folks of around 30 to 70 years of age. I’ve met many people in their late thirties, some who even work in universities, unable or very uncomfortable in speaking English.
I don’t know what study these numbers are based on, but many of them only assess certain (typically younger) age groups. In my experience, the people coming out of school today in Germany are often quite good in English.
Edit: Looked it up. The data are not based on any study but the results of test takers that aim to earn a certain language certificate. So no specific age group but still likely younger people. The sample is completely self-selected, though, so it’s hard to say anything definitive. From the Wikipedia page:
The EF EPI 2024 edition was calculated using test data from 2.1 million test takers in 2023. The test takers were self-selected. 116 countries and territories appear in this edition of the index. In order to be included, a country was required to have at least 400 test takers.
And more:
The EF English Proficiency Index has been the subject of criticism in literature. From the point of view of methodology, it suffers from self-selection bias. Instead of testing the level of English proficiency in the population, it tests the level of English of those who self-select.
This seems like a very poor basis for a country ranking.
Same with Austria. As a Dane living in Austria, it feels like nobody here has even half-decent English skills. It’s horrible, and I blame generations of dubbed TV and movies.
Where in Germany? This coulf be a latent East/West divide.
Ruhrpott and Düsseldorf.
Really? Nearly everyone I met there spoke excellent English…
I’m also confused. Maybe they just don’t want to talk, that’s the best explanation I have.
Maybe English proficiency across the world isn’t as high as the internet would have you believe.
Missed the chance to reverse the color scale and have orange for the Netherlands.
Keep in mind that
The EF English Proficiency Index has been the subject of criticism in literature. From the point of view of methodology, it suffers from self-selection bias. Instead of testing the level of English proficiency in the population, it tests the level of English of those who self-select.
(From the Wikipedia article.)
Where is Slovenia???
Exactly
We need a BadDataViz community…
