Luxembourg among the top ten countries for English speakers

English remains one of the most widely spoken and popular languages in the world. In 100 countries, it is spoken by nearly 1.5 billion people. However, only 380 million can be considered native speakers, while more than 1 billion of the rest consider English a second language.

Libya is the worst off, followed by Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Côte d'Ivoire, Iraq and Uzbekistan. Among European countries, Italians, Spanish, Latvians, and the French have the worst knowledge of English. And yet, in Europe, the most average level of language proficiency does not fall below "average".

There are 8 European countries in the top 10:

1. The Netherlands
2. Sweden
3. Norway
4. Denmark
5. Singapore
6. South Africa
7. Finland
8. Austria
9. Luxembourg
10. Germany

In second place is the Netherlands, displacing last year's favorite, Sweden. The level of English proficiency across the top ten is rated as "very high". Poland, Portugal, Belgium and Croatia are at the same level.