English Proficiency Index: Danes are the best non-native English-speakers

[Tender Branson]

Thank goodness we are not all too far behind:



http://www.thelocal.dk/20141112/danes-the-best-non-native-english-speakers-in-the-world

Full report with country details:

http://www.ef.co.uk/epi

Interesting finding:

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Correlates with the % of Austrian females and males voting FPÖ ...

[Silent Hunter]

Is this the old subtitled/dubbed division again? That said, Austria and Poland are outliers.

[Hnv1]

France's result is quite poor...is English not part of the school curriculum there?

[Hash]

France's result is quite poor...is English not part of the school curriculum there?

I thankfully only experienced France's education system for one year (in grade 1, and not in France), but English second language education in the French system is total crap. There's also the big aspect of lingering French cultural imperialism and anti-English knee-jerk reactions eg. France is the greatest country and the only country that matters, and everybody else just wishes they were French. Although at the same time, a lot of French idiots (eg. Arnaud Montebourg) like to inject some misplaced and mispronounced English words in their speech to look 'hip'.

[swl]

France's result is quite poor...is English not part of the school curriculum there?

First modern language (langue vivante) is mandatory from sixieme (~11 years old), second modern language from quatrieme (~13 years old). Parents are free to choose the languages they want their children to learn, but around 90% chose English as the first modern language and almost everyone else as the second language.
In any case, it's two hours a week with 25 pupils per teacher, not enough to become fluent.

[Silent Hunter]

France's result is quite poor...is English not part of the school curriculum there?

Also, all of their English-language telly gets dubbed into French; subtitled TV is a big way to learn English and also acquire an American accent when using it.

[Tender Branson]

France's result is quite poor...is English not part of the school curriculum there?

Also, all of their English-language telly gets dubbed into French; subtitled TV is a big way to learn English and also acquire an American accent when using it.

Austrian TV also dubs all English shows or movies to German (as well as TV stations in Germany and Switzerland).

But the ORF (and the ARD/ZDF and SRF) usually send an additional, original English audio track with it.

For example if you watch a new English-speaking TV show, you just press the dual-audio button on your remote and it instantly switches to English-only.

...

But I guess the fact that we are ranked 7th in this study mostly has to do with the fact that Austria is tourism-heavy, which means every person in that sector needs at least English, and the fact that students already learn English in 1st grade.

[dead0man]

Do you guys learn English English or American English or some third thing?  Is the big piece of metal that covers your engine of you car a hood or a bonnet?  Is the thing out back a boot or a trunk?  When it's dark out, do you grab a flashlight or a torch?  When getting in the box to take you to a different floor is at an elevator or a lift?

[Edu]

Do you guys learn English English or American English or some third thing?  Is the big piece of metal that covers your engine of you car a hood or a bonnet?  Is the thing out back a boot or a trunk?  When it's dark out, do you grab a flashlight or a torch?  When getting in the box to take you to a different floor is at an elevator or a lift?

I learned some time ago the differences between American and British English, but I've forgotten most of them.
I usually use hood, trunk, flashlight and lift.

You make the diagnosis

[MaxQue]

Do you guys learn English English or American English or some third thing?  Is the big piece of metal that covers your engine of you car a hood or a bonnet?  Is the thing out back a boot or a trunk?  When it's dark out, do you grab a flashlight or a torch?  When getting in the box to take you to a different floor is at an elevator or a lift?

It may be like Quebec. The teacher ends up "deciding" (in fact, the region he comes from decide). A British talks British, an American talks American and a Canadian talks "Canadian" (a wierd mix of American and British). All forms are accepted on exams, obviously, so you can write color or colour, whatever you like.

[ingemann]

Do you guys learn English English or American English or some third thing?  Is the big piece of metal that covers your engine of you car a hood or a bonnet?  Is the thing out back a boot or a trunk?  When it's dark out, do you grab a flashlight or a torch?  When getting in the box to take you to a different floor is at an elevator or a lift?

In general I think almost everybody outside USA learn British English, but the interaction with American speakers, either on the internet and in the fact that most English speaking entertaining is American in origin, mean that the British English we learn is "contaminated" by American English, especially in vocabulary we will be more likely to use the American words at least in Scandinavia, simply because we learn the most common words and the grammar, while we pick less common words up along the way. I know East Asian countries are different with a greater focus on learning the wider vocabulary, but in my experience most European are more like Scandinavian in this regard.

So no people often don't learn the different between a hood and a bonnet, but if we did, we would learn bonnet, but instead hood is picked up along the way.

[Tender Branson]

Do you guys learn English English or American English or some third thing?  Is the big piece of metal that covers your engine of you car a hood or a bonnet?  Is the thing out back a boot or a trunk?  When it's dark out, do you grab a flashlight or a torch?  When getting in the box to take you to a different floor is at an elevator or a lift?

A mix of both here. I had 4 English teachers and all of them used British written English. But the more we read in school (Newsweek, TIME magazine back then) and watched (American TV shows streamed on the Internet with American English audio track), the more it went to American English. Reading the Harry Potter books in original British English probably brought me back more towards even use of both styles.

But I continue to use "colour" more often than "color" and so on.

And I'd use "hood", "trunk", "torch" and "lift" (because it's the same word in German) ...

[TDAS04]

I don't know for sure, but I would guess that in Belgium, the Flemish are better at English than the French-speakers.  I would also guess that the German-Swiss speak more English than the French- and Italian-Swiss. 

[ingemann]

I don't know for sure, but I would guess that in Belgium, the Flemish are better at English than the French-speakers.  I would also guess that the German-Swiss speak more English than the French- and Italian-Swiss. 

I have not had much experience with the Swiss, but the little I have had, indicate that in Switzerland it's more a urban/rural divide than a Germanic/Romance divide. As for Belgium in my experience yes the Flemish are much better at English than the French speakers.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Danish people - other than posh ones actually - speaking English often sound as if they're from Rhyl. It's strange.

[Lurker]

Is this the old subtitled/dubbed division again? That said, Austria and Poland are outliers.

There's a correlation, at least: The top 5 countries have all always used subtitles.

Poland and Austria are outliers, yes. Btw, the Polish dubbing industry is one of the strangest I've seen: Rather than a multitude of voice actors, they had one man doing all the voices (while the original language is heard faintly in the background).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lots of Poles also work here, of course.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Damned Kalwejt clones taking over.

[Yeahsayyeah]

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Well, the accurate German word is "Fahrstuhl", not to be mixed up with "driver's seat" - "Fahrersitz" ;-)

[Tender Branson]

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Well, the accurate German word is "Fahrstuhl", not to be mixed up with "driver's seat" - "Fahrersitz" ;-)

Must be a "German" thing. I'm pretty sure that 95% of Austrians use the word "Lift", with the remaining 5% of German immigrants and tourists using "Fahrstuhl" ...

"Fahrstuhl" sounds rather antiquated, from the 1920s or something.

But you Germans probably also still use the word "womenfolk": "Just look at all this coquette womenfolk in the Fahrstuhl" ...

[Beezer]

Aufzug! That's the proper German word.

[Tender Branson]

Aufzug! That's the proper German word.

Yeah, that's also an option - but still not widely used here.

[Beezer]

It's such a beautiful word though...and gives you a good idea of what you are about to use.

[Hatman 🍁]

Do you guys learn English English or American English or some third thing?  Is the big piece of metal that covers your engine of you car a hood or a bonnet?  Is the thing out back a boot or a trunk?  When it's dark out, do you grab a flashlight or a torch?  When getting in the box to take you to a different floor is at an elevator or a lift?

It may be like Quebec. The teacher ends up "deciding" (in fact, the region he comes from decide). A British talks British, an American talks American and a Canadian talks "Canadian" (a wierd mix of American and British). All forms are accepted on exams, obviously, so you can write color or colour, whatever you like.

I think I've mentioned this before, but most of the time that I see US spelling used by a Canadian, it's by a Francophone.

[Franzl]

"Aufzug" is the word I'd use.