Posted on 10/26/2012 2:48:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Swedes have the highest proficiency in English as a second language in the world, according to a new study which tested nearly 2 million people in 54 countries.
Sweden, which finished fourth last year, moved up to first place in the study, carried out by education company Education First.
“We are extremely proud that Swedes are the best in the world at English,” said Mats Ulenius, the head of Sweden’s branch of Education first.
“One of the factors of our success is that we begin with English education already in lower school. Another is that we are exposed to a lot of English as we travel a lot, our TV programmes aren’t dubbed and we use the internet a lot.”
Scandinavian companies performed well in the study, with Denmark in second place, Finland in fourth and Norway in fifth. The leading country from 2011’s study, the Netherlands, finished third this year.
“For an export-driven country like Sweden, good English is extremely important. The report has also shown that English is a key factor for economic welfare. A better handle on English goes hand in hand with higher income, more export, a good innovation climate, and better business,” Ulenius said.
Furthermore, the study revealed that women spoke better English than men due to more women studying humanities and attending university in general. The best age range for English proficiency was 26-35 years old.
The language test was made up of 100 online questions about grammar, reading and hearing comprehension, as well as vocabulary.
Education First is a language company that was founded in Lund, southern Sweden, in 1965 in the hope of bridging language, cultural and geographical barriers.
Who cares? They’re also first in the world with beautiful blondes. Talk to me about stuff that matters.
That’s great but they better get to work on their arabic.
I wonder where Great Britain ranked?
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway.
I wonder how well (poorly, actually) a cross-section of native, English-speaking US public school teachers would fare on that same test.
I shudder to think of how most US public school students and graduates would do.
Ping.
This has been true for a long time. I used to do a lot of work in Sweden in the 90s and I was amazed that pretty much all corporate documents were in English. When I walked in the door of an office, even before anyone knew that I was American, they greeted me in English. I’m surprised Swedish people still know how to speak and write in Swedish.
Also in the study: 'Inner city Americans have the worst rate at English!!'
That would be true for most Swedes I know, EXCEPT for some of my cousin's family, who run the Henriksson family farm. Older and more rural Swedes tend not to be as good in English.
Ping to the Swedish Ping List.
Uhlana, Joja (Atlanta, Georgia), CAY ro seen (kerosene),
Raffle (Either a sale or a gun). Take that you Swedes!
What about the women?
ROFL!
I wonder how you will butcher Aussie English to size...
Yes. I’m not into blonde guys.
Dey be doin' bad if you axe me.
Swedish is part of Germanic language group,just like English. Being relatively smaller in terms of the number of speakers, it’s easy for them to adopt English compared to their bigger relative, the German themselves.
I think Aussies are still in the “Cowboy Myth” stage. Only for them it’s the Outback instead of the West. Just as the hardliving cowpoke had his own lingo so does Aussie English.
For example: Mite (either flea like or friend but not wife)
or Bier (either a stand for a corpse or the brewed drink).
To most words the voice must be raised slightly at the end to produce the distinctive sound of Aussiespeak. Americans tend to drop the voice at the end of words, not every time but more often than not.
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