Olan McEvoy
Research expert covering the European Union for society, economy, and politics.
Get in touch with us nowTurkey 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.
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