Portugal is the world’s 9th best country to speak English, but drops two positions compared to last year
The Netherlands leads the ranking. Austria remains in 2nd position, and Norway closes the podium of countries where English is best spoken.
Portugal dropped 11 points in this year’s English language proficiency index, now occupying the 9th position worldwide, surpassed by Sweden (7th) and Finland (8th), according to Education First (EF), which analysed data from over 2.1 million non-native English speakers in 111 countries and regions. Nevertheless, the country maintains the status of “High Proficiency”.
The Netherlands leads the ranking. Austria remains in 2nd position, and Norway closes the podium of countries where English is best spoken. On the opposite side, Yemen (109th), the Democratic Republic of Congo (110th) and Laos (111th) are the countries where English proficiency is the lowest.
Meanwhile, countries such as Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Spain, Greece and Italy are among the group that have improved their English level the most compared to last year.
Porto and Lisbon are no longer the districts with the highest proficiency in English
Leiria, Braga and Viseu are the Portuguese districts where English is best spoken. This year, Porto and Lisbon leave the podium directly to the 4th and 6th places, respectively. It’s the first time since the study was published that Lisbon and Porto are not fighting for first place in this list. The pandemic may be the origin of these changes.
