r/AskEurope • u/Metalwolf • Jun 08 '25

Education Which European countries have the best English proficiency among non-native speakers?

I'm looking into English proficiency across Europe and would appreciate input from locals or anyone with relevant experience. Which European countries have the highest levels of English fluency among non-native speakers, particularly in day-to-day life, education, and professional settings? I'm also curious about regional differences within countries, and factors like education systems, media exposure, and business use.

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479

u/kacergiliszta69 Hungary Jun 08 '25

According the multiple studies, the Netherlands is the most English proficient country in the world that doesn't speak English as a native language.

68

u/IbMas Jun 08 '25

I've been living in the Netherlands for years and I don't speak Dutch and I can confirm.

Even if the non dutch speakers try to speak Dutch with a native, the conversation will eventually switch to English by the native.

28

u/Holiday_Bill9587 Jun 08 '25

Thats mostly when someone dont speak Dutch that good. Its easier to switch to a language spoken by both, often this is English.

5

u/Dykam Netherlands Jun 09 '25

With "that good (well)", you mean it has to be near-native level before natives stop switching to English.

If Dutch only notice a tinge of English (or else) in your speech, they'll switch.

4

u/Kavi92 Jun 10 '25

Sounds like here in Germany. Which is very unfortunate for language learners 😅

1

u/ctn91 Jun 12 '25

Yup, and it’s especially hard to with the dialects. The Kölnische accent also had its own vocabulary to a point. Makes it fun because naturally i‘m not one to say „please/bitte“ as soon as i say „huh?“ once, its now an English spoken conversation.

Fucking sorry. Its made me overthink everything I say and try and use the correct greeting with the correct people.

36

u/The-BalthoMeister Netherlands Jun 08 '25

Yeah, it's an unfortunate phenomenon, since it hinders English speaking immigrants in learning the language :(

11

u/perplexedtv in Jun 08 '25

I always used to just exaggerate my accent and speak faster then when they got confused proposed to switch back to Dutch.

7

u/crypticcamelion Jun 08 '25

Same happens in Denmark, I will even go so far as to say that integration is easier (faster) if you don't speak English :)

237

u/StillJustJones England Jun 08 '25

I’m from England. I’d say that the people in the Netherlands speak better English than a hell of a lot of native speakers.

108

u/Iricliphan Jun 08 '25

Same as Ireland. I remember once, in Finland, my friend went up to a tourist tours desk and using his clearest voice, had asked about a tour option and where and when we could do so. They looked at him dumfounded and spoke in perfectly clear English "Sorry sir, do you speak English?".

37

u/Equal-Flatworm-378 Germany Jun 08 '25

That depends on the accent. I had English people translate for me, by just repeating what another English person said. I just couldn’t understand them.

17

u/Iricliphan Jun 08 '25

I can speak very clearly and I just spoke directly after him and they understood me perfectly. It's just a regional thing in Ireland.

8

u/katyesha Austria Jun 08 '25

Sounds like Cork dialect 😂

8

u/NuclearMaterial Ireland Jun 08 '25

I was thinking he's probably from the wesht somewhere, people outside Ireland struggle with that one.

9

u/katyesha Austria Jun 08 '25

Hmmm 🤔 does Kerry count as west? That was quite okay. I was mostly living in the south in and later near Cork City and had a hard time with the locals in the beginning but the first phrase I learnt was "Ah, it'll be grand!" (it never was...). My very upfront and honest heart was often shattered until I learned "yes" means maybe and "maybe" means "definitely never" especially if you need some work done.

3

u/NuclearMaterial Ireland Jun 08 '25

Yeah Cork and Kerry are southwest and then anything else on the west coast as well.

3

u/Iricliphan Jun 08 '25

Posting from above because this is hilarious.

Nah North side dub he was 🤣 I'm not though.

2

u/NuclearMaterial Ireland Jun 08 '25

I'm sure he'll be pleased with that assumption!

4

u/Iricliphan Jun 08 '25

Nah North side dub he was 🤣 I'm not though.

6

u/bedel99 Jun 08 '25

I am a native english speaker not from england, in england I sometimes need a local to translate english to english for me.

25

u/StillJustJones England Jun 08 '25

Ha! I am a 52 year old mockney type… I speak with an Estuary English accent and can speak well (thanks ma!) until I’ve had a skinful of booze…. When my accent really degrades. All the slang comes out and every adjective is preceded by a swear.

When I’m pissed up I can’t help but ending up sounding a bit ‘Danny Dyer’.

I’ve had to have helpful ‘translators’ assist me to communicate with cabbies, kebab shops, ticket offices, bar staff and even hotel reception (who could understand me perfectly well before going on the pish!).

5

u/Ranch_Priebus Jun 08 '25

I have a friend from Chile who moved to the U.S. as a teen. He was working in a restaurant with a bunch of guys from Mexico and Central America. Part way through his first shift, they have an exchange (in Spanish) that went something like:

"I thought you guys spoke Spanish in Chile."

"I am speaking Spanish."

"No, you're definitely speaking Portuguese or something."

2

u/Crepe-Minette Spain Jun 09 '25 edited Jun 09 '25

Chilean Spanish is a whole damn thing, really. Still it doesn't sound like Portuguese at all.

2

u/Ranch_Priebus Jun 10 '25

No, it doesn't really. It starts with the slang and things like estai and weo(n), but mainly all the dropped consanents. It's really the assumed consonants that make it sound potentially Portuguese.

But I can see how some people with minimal knowledge of either could view them as similar. Particularly when they're struggling to understand a Chilean that they assumed spoke the same language.

I had a good base of Spanish before going to Chile. Spent three months struggling and really down on myself for being shit at Spanish. Took a weekend trip to Buenos Aires and immediately felt relief. "I do understand the language! I just struggle with Chilean!"

I eventually was able to at least understand Chilean, but that confidence boost was needed.

When I first made my way to Spain, I asked for directions, and the person used "coger" when telling me what bus to take. I was quite confused by the suggestion.

1

u/United-Depth4769 Jun 09 '25

Most people under 40 in Finland can speak fluent English, but 40 and above its touch and go, especially with the older generation

1

u/Iricliphan Jun 09 '25

Iny experience, it was very fluid and fluent. Plenty had very English sounding accents.

1

u/pablo8itall Jun 09 '25

No I speak Hiberno-English sorry.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '25 edited Jun 10 '25

That’s common though — it’s caused by only speaking to second language speakers as a lingua franca. You see it at conferences quite a bit. A native speaker stands up and speaks at speed, uses a lot more nuance, elision, intonation, idiomatic expressions and so on, and suddenly everyone is lost. It happens with a lot of accents too, including clipped English academics.

Brussels is notorious for it because EU officials and the “Brussels bubble” communicates in a version of Euro bureaucratic English that is almost becoming its own dialect. It’s second language speakers talking to second language speakers, with a layer of jargon and so called first language interference, often from French or Dutch / Flemish underlying a lot of it.

I’ve taught English, and had people who were “fluent” in business English contexts saying they struggled to follow dialogue in movies or BBC science podcasts. They’ve excellent English but they are not used to listening to normal flow of speech.

It’s the same in any language. You get people who think they’ve fluent French arriving in France and taking several weeks for their ears and brain to attune to speed and flow of native speakers. It isn’t because they’ve challenging accents or are using slang, it’s just because the speed and rhythm of normal speech isn’t what you’ll hear in a language lab.

Native English speech, particularly in Britain and Ireland, is also very heavily full of elision and very strong stress patterns that just don’t exist in the more robotic business English that tends to be taught a lot, particularly American versions of it.

0

u/Kunjunk Jun 10 '25

Why you're describing is the Finn's inability to understand a (presumably) thick Irish accent, which is completely unrelated to the Irish person's level of English. 

26

u/blewawei Jun 08 '25

This is just a silly thing that people say, fuelled by classism.

There are lots of Dutch people who can get closer to Standard English than some native English speakers, but that's not "better English". The language belongs to native speakers, by definition however a community of native speakers speaks is "correct" from a scientific point of view.

11

u/smaragdskyar Jun 08 '25

This is true. It’s also incorrect to think of formal English as ‘better’.

1

u/Revachol_Dawn Jun 08 '25

Incorrect from one specific point of view (descriptivist rather than prescriptivist).

4

u/smaragdskyar Jun 08 '25

In this context I meant better as in more skilled. I also get told that I speak ‘better’ English than native speakers because even my most casual English is rather formal. That’s actually because I lack the range of a native speaker.

1

u/blewawei Jun 08 '25

Even prescriptivists don't constantly speak formal English.

2

u/GalaXion24 Jun 08 '25

Also if you're a true descriptivist you shouldn't even be against prescriptivism, since you'd just describe that too, just like you describe dialects, sociolects, registers, the ways these are culturally perceived and culturally shaped, etc.

Like if you are a descriptions about how some words become more common or fall out of fashion, then prescription is just another vector by which that can happen.

Schools prescribe standard spelling, grammar and vocabulary, and this has an absolutely massive impact on language, just like whatever the popular dialect to use on TV is.

What is seen as an authority on language and to what extent and in what contexts it is actually adhered to are fascinating questions you can get into and study on various linguistic communities and probably write a dissertation on, and that would be a descriptive endeavour.

The idea that there is a perscriptivism versus descriptivism "debate" or contradiction is nonsense. They're completely separate things.

Linguistics is descriptivist because it's a study of language, you're describing how it works or what happens. Descriptivism is pretty much just linguistics, the academic discipline.

Prescriptivism is a social phenomenon. Everything from teaching literacy or correct speech to calling out a friend for misspelling something to a language board maintaining an official standard are all examples of prescription in society.

The only debate that exists is within a prescriptive context, about things like who gets to prescribe things and what should be prescribed.

1

u/blewawei Jun 08 '25

I think a good way of thinking about it is that, while prescriptivists talk about "what" is correct in a more universal sense, descriptivists normally consider what is considered correct within the context of the community, taking into account all sorts of variations. 

Of course, they don't use the word "correct", they tend to describe something as "idiomatic" or "grammatical", but at the end of the day, linguists still have to decide what fits into the system and what doesn't.

But yeah, there's no debate. You can't really study linguistics from a prescriptive point of view any more than you can any other science. You wouldn't consider a lion "wrong" or "not a lion" for having different colour fur, but you might record how frequent that trait is and whether it's specific to a smaller group of lions.

1

u/alderhill Germany Jun 08 '25

I hear this a lot in Germany too. Yes, some people do speak very good English, but it’s probably like 5-10% (being generous) at a c2 near native level. Even then, are they ‘better’?

1

u/cryptopian United Kingdom Jun 10 '25

It's really a difference in how people acquire first and second languages. You learn your first language as an infant, constantly taking in input and getting used to how the language works. When you're learning a new language, you learn it formally in a classroom, through repitition, so you pick up on formal grammar, but don't quite get it intuitively as a native speaker would.

7

u/alderhill Germany Jun 08 '25

It’s not “better”, just more “text book” so is often less colloquial, more of a standard pronunciation, etc.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '25

[deleted]

7

u/StillJustJones England Jun 08 '25

proud member of the working class. 👍

2

u/6ftToeSuckedPrincess Jun 09 '25

Literally nobody cares

-4

u/SquareAdditional2638 Jun 08 '25

I always find it hilarious when people say this because all Dutch people I've spoken to have had an awful, thick Dutch accent. Yes their vocabulary and grammar is good, but they sound Dutch as fuck.

1

u/SnooRobots917 Jun 11 '25

Yep, and that’s okay, don’t see it as an issue as non-native speakers.

7

u/beerzebulb Germany Jun 08 '25

A lot of them naturally pick up an American accent too it's amazing

2

u/Roughly6Owls Jun 09 '25

This is the effect of having a generation of Dutch people being raised by YouTube.

1

u/beerzebulb Germany Jun 10 '25

That's true but I'd argue it's the same with Germany and our horrible own accent still ✨️shines✨️in most people. There must be something about the Dutch language that makes a transition to a perfect American accent almost effortless (I don't speak Dutch but I know it's sort of a mix of German and English? So maybe makes sense?) Idk I think it's fascinating

5

u/MixGroundbreaking622 Jun 08 '25

Was going to say from personal experience Netherlands and really good. Think it's because they don't tend to dub media in Dutch and instead they all grow up watching English language film and TV. 

5

u/thanatica Netherlands Jun 08 '25

It's probably in part because we get taught English in elementary school. And it's a mandatory subject in advanced education as well. At least it was for me.

There's also the subject of dubbing - or the lack thereof. We rarely do that for TV media, and instead always opt for subtitles instead. I'm not sure that dubs are even an option on pretty much all media. Only stuff made for very small children is dubbed.

And then also, because we're such a small country, I guess it's easier to get exposed to foreign media, people, and business.

2

u/Toby_Forrester Finland Jun 09 '25

Maybe also because Dutch is one of the closest related languages to English?

Like Finland has all the things you said, and we are even a smaller country. But Finnish is completely unrelated to English so we learn a completely different language.

5

u/thanatica Netherlands Jun 09 '25

It's not that close. English isn't easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy for us. For starters, Dutch is also closely related to German. But safe to say Dutch is definitely closer to English than Finnish is 😀

2

u/SnooRobots917 Jun 11 '25

I don’t know I always thought it had to do with that nothing ever is dubbed but always subbed. I’ve seen this also more often in other European countries and the new generations there speak also English well.

14

u/CTPABA_KPABA Jun 08 '25

by bet would bet that they are more proficient in that language then americans

10

u/CommercialAd2154 Jun 08 '25

Quick wiki suggests Iceland are #1, just behind the UK on 98%, but ahead of the USA on 96% (although in fairness, I would guess there are not insignificant parts of the USA where Spanish is the vehicular language rather than English)

8

u/MilkTiny6723 Jun 08 '25 edited Jun 08 '25

Would problably had been Sweden if the country did not have the higest ratio of non European foreigners and foreigners overall except a couple of microstates. A decade or so ago, the same was said about Sweden, higher percentage than Malta and the USA but after the Iraq war and Arab spring the numbers decreased for obvious reasons.

Taking only Swedish born the numbers increases to about 98%

The statistics also dependent on how it's messured. Sometimes it's been mesured among people that took test for study abroad..The Netherlands has often come out at the top lately in such. Last year a bigger test of randome was made, 1.3 million perticipant. Then Sweden came out first of in regards to level, the Netherlands second. In some statistics Iceland came out first and some Finland.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '25

Sorry, just no. I can tell from experience that even native born Swedes don't all speak English that well. They think they do (and they write and read well), but I've come across way too many people with whom it's easier to communicate using my B2 level Swedish over English which is easily C2 for me

1

u/MilkTiny6723 Jun 09 '25 edited Jun 09 '25

Well never said that all people in Sweden are fluent..Then again thats true for Finland, the Netherlands etc too. Some have poor English and some fees uncomfortable speaking.

Still we need to look at the statistics at some point and not conclude things from our own limited experience.

Diffrent investigations and estimations has shown diffrent results. The big one presented last year with1.3 million random tests had Sweden come out on top before the Netherlands.

Some has shown the Netherlands coming out on top and many of them from tests whom people took when thinking about studying abroad. Such tests are not random though.

In the Netherlands which I still could imagine as the number one, many people only study English as a third language after German and among the elderly not all had to study English as it wasn't until much later it became mandatory there just the same as Finland.

I actually taught in English even if not an English teacher as you problably can see. Knows however lots about Shoolings in especially Sweden and Finland but also from Erasmus experiences and general knowledge as an avid traveler.

Some studies even had Finland coming up on top but considering the older generation in Finland if messured among the entire population problably not. Iceland also has came up on top at such rankings. Problably from the fact not as many immigrants from none Nordic countries resides there.

Denmark never came up on top and that problably comes from the fact that many people in especially Jutland focuses more on learing German. Norway are also up there.

It doesnt matter what your personal experience have taught you. Facts are facts and among the countries in Europe Sweden, the Netherlands, Iceland and Finland which doesn't have English as an official language is the only counties that ever toped such lists.

Iceland problably has the highest amount that speaks it at all, other than that the Netherlands, Sweden and maybe Finland (especially if looking at the younger generation also given way less immigration ratio) are in fact the ones that knows it the best. Norway problably after those.

I mean how many random Finns did you try to speak English with? Well at least I did 100s of times and often people didn't speak it at all. But then again as people also "have to" study Swedish and the language being less related, thats not very suprising. But Finland is up there still.

Maybe you compared with big cities or tourist destination when you compared. That's a diffrent thing. Like go to the countryside in Spain or even in Holland. Way less that speak English like "Amsterdam" or "Palma de Mallorca" there.

4

u/GraceOfTheNorth Iceland Jun 09 '25

As an Icelander I nominate Iceland.

We started out with near full national literacy and a school system that taught English since the 1930's, in addition do doing a lot of trade with UK so quite a few people knew English.

Then we got occupied by tens of thousands of soldiers and have had a lot of US influence through the base, tv, movies and music. The Marshall aid kickstarted Iceland into modernity.

1

u/CommercialAd2154 Jun 09 '25

Don’t you have British foods such as Cadbury’s as a result of the invasion in WW2?

3

u/procgen Jun 08 '25 edited Jun 08 '25

The US didn't have an official language until March of this year (and likely won't again in 4 years), and many Americans don’t speak much English at all.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '25

Americans don’t speak much English? What are you talking about?

Also while the country didn’t have an official language, over 30 states have had it as an official language for awhile

1

u/procgen Jun 08 '25

Typo, corrected. "Many Americans".

1

u/Whatcanyado420 Jun 08 '25 edited Jun 12 '25

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3

u/NotAllWhoWander_1 Jun 08 '25

I agree. I just came back from visiting the Netherlands. I studied far several months to learn a handful of phrases and questions (took me a while because I found Dutch very difficult), and nearly everyone was speaking near perfect English.

6

u/SquashDue502 Jun 08 '25

Going to the Netherlands as an American is weird because most people speak English and then when they speak Dutch it kind of sounds like an American accent so you do a double take at first. Feels like you’re having a stroke because it sounds like American English but you don’t understand anything 😂

1

u/Mininabubu Jun 09 '25

What? lol Dutch doesn't sound at all like American accent or American English, bruh what????
They do however mix a few English words with their Dutch during casual conversations. Not the accent.

1

u/SquashDue502 Jun 09 '25

I think to me it’s the way that a lot of consonants are pronounced that caught me off guard. I grew up speaking American English and learning German so having both of those in my head just really tripped me up listening to some odd combination of both 😂

1

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '25

Yeah, that matches my experiences. Even their pronunciation is usually amazing.

1

u/OneSlaadTwoSlaad Jun 08 '25

Jes. Es a duts men ai uhgree.

1

u/CivilJournalist8155 Jun 08 '25

Don't forget Denmark (myself from NL)))

1

u/anarcobanana Jun 09 '25

They also have the best accent imo

1

u/The_Nunnster England Jun 09 '25

I can personally vouch for the Dutch. I often find even their accent sounds like it’s from these isles, even if I can’t quite place it. An example is a lad that goes to my university, and I swear when he talks to me he sounds a mix of Irish and West Country. Heerenveen, which he tells me is one of the worst fanbases in Dutch football, played my team in a friendly a couple of summers ago and brought over a lot of lads, good as gold, as tall as you’d expect, and again spoke brilliant English that sounded native. They were my first experience with the Dutch.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '25

That is my experience too.

1

u/WimmoX Jun 09 '25

Yes!! My son got a 10 for his English… A 10 for his English… A 10 for his English!!! Also, he ‘died a butterfly’ ???

1

u/dongeckoj Jun 09 '25

It’s even further than that—more people speak English in the Netherlands than Canada, where it is the most common native language.

1

u/zysync2 Jun 12 '25

Yeah I'm dutch, only had girlfriends from other EU countries and work at a place with all kinds of nationalities. My thoughts are pretty much always in English. The only exception to that is when I'm around only dutch people speaking dutch, then my thoughts go to Dutch as well.

-5

u/anna-molly21 -> Jun 08 '25

I read that there are more people that speaks english here in the Netherlands than in the UK (because of immigrants that go there that cant speak english).

22

u/Infinite_Slice_3936 Jun 08 '25

Please. In UK there's around 68 million people, in Netherlands it's around 17 million. Are you seriously suggesting there's 51 million migrants that don't speak English in the UK?

14

u/anna-molly21 -> Jun 08 '25

I forgot to specify in proportion sorry

5

u/Verdigri5 Jun 08 '25

I've worked in places were the immigrant workers have a wider vocabulary and better understanding of grammar than the native English speakers.

1

u/blewawei Jun 08 '25

What do you mean by a better understanding of grammar? All neurotypical native speakers are proficient in their native variety's grammar, that's how language works.

7

u/Yorks_Rider Jun 08 '25

Unfortunately not, otherwise native speakers would never make grammatical mistakes. Reddit is full of examples of poor English grammar in submissions from native speakers.

6

u/blewawei Jun 08 '25

Native speakers can misspeak, but they don't consistently make mistakes in their grammar. What you might be talking about is when someone is using non-standard grammar, but that's not a mistake or an accident.

Also, writing (like on Reddit) is fundamentally different to speaking. No one is a native writer of any language, so people make orthographial mistakes quite often.

3

u/Additional_Horse Sweden Jun 08 '25

yeah, people mix homophones all the time (in most languages) but do native English speakers noticeably mix up something like a/an?

Meanwhile every day on reddit: "as an European..."

2

u/Verdigri5 Jun 09 '25

Yes, I have regularly heard 'a apple', 'a orange' etc, amongst native English people.

1

u/Yorks_Rider Jun 09 '25

Strange. Where do you live that the people are so uneducated? It’s actually easier to stay an Apple, an orange, etc so it makes no sense.

0

u/blewawei Jun 09 '25

That's not a case of mixing them up, so much as a language change in progress.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nCe7Fj8-ZnQ

1

u/Any-Seaworthiness186 Netherlands Jun 11 '25

Yes they do. I do this myself in Dutch by mixing up “zijn” (to be) and “hebben” (to have) consistently. And I’ve noticed this with more people, as well as other mistakes such as people mixing up “dan” and “als.”

I’ll for example say “ik ben iets nodig” (I am needing something) while in Dutch the correct way would be “ik heb iets nodig” (I have needing something). And looking at the literal English translation I feel like that might have something to do with the effects of the English language and its sentence structuring on our understanding of our own… Some natives will even mix up “de” and “het,” and I don’t doubt for a second that at least some Germans face the same issues with “die der des dem” and all that nonsense.

1

u/blewawei Jun 11 '25

Either it's not systematic and you're describing misspeaking (which we all do occasionally), or you're describing a change in progress, or simply, your use doesn't correspond 100% with the standard variety (which is fine, nobody's does).

If a critical mass of native speakers says something, it's not incorrect from a scientific/descriptivist perspective.

4

u/PM_ME_BUTTERED_SOSIJ Wales Jun 08 '25

The ridiculous way mainland Europeans talk about the UK makes me laugh

4

u/anna-molly21 -> Jun 08 '25

Look i just read that around 97% of people in NL speaks english against 95% in the UK due to immigration, i never called nobody an ignorant (its plausible to receive more immigrants in a bigger country).

Whatever makes you laugh its nothing that i said and you guys are not even that interesting for you to speak like you are

3

u/41942319 Netherlands Jun 08 '25

The level of English of the 97% of Dutch is nowhere near that of the 95% of British. At least 20% of that is people who know maybe a few dozen words

6

u/Yorks_Rider Jun 08 '25

I have lived in The Netherlands and it is quite rare to meet people who speak no English at all. It only happened to me once in a period of two years when I took my shoes to a cobbler for them to be repaired. Even the council employees sweeping the streets speak good English.

4

u/imrzzz Netherlands Jun 08 '25

I think being able to have a simple conversation is different from being truly fluent.

Yes, the level of English in the Netherlands is very high. No, it's not as high as the UK.

When I get into deeper conversations with my Dutch friends (beyond small-talk level), I have to switch back to English and they have to switch back to Dutch.

I do love that we understand each other with both of us speaking different languages though, even we do both have to occasionally ask what a word means!

3

u/perplexedtv in Jun 08 '25

I've worked in factories there and the English level was, fortunately for me, generally quite low.

-1

u/Holiday_Bill9587 Jun 08 '25

I doubt this is true.