People in Nordic countries are among the world’s most fluent when it comes to speaking English as a foreign language, according to a major education company.

EF bills its English Proficiency Index as ”the world's largest ranking of English skills”. The results are based on test scores from 750,000 adults who took the firm’s English tests in 2013.

The company ranks seven countries as having “very high” proficiency: Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Poland and Austria, followed by Estonia at the top of the “high proficiency” class.

According to the report, ”Europe’s English proficiency remains far higher than other regions’, and it continues to improve.” Malaysia, in 12th place, was the highest non-European country. Ranked lowest out of 63 countries included were Iraq, Libya and Cambodia.

EF, established 50 years ago in Sweden, is now based in Switzerland.

Read the report: www.ef.fi/epi/

Source: yle.fi
Photo: Cecilia Larsson Lantz/Image Bank of Sweden