A newly updated index ranks proficiency around the world
According to a new report by EF Education First, an international education company, Northern Europeans are the most fluent (the Netherlands tops the rankings, followed by Sweden, Norway and Denmark).
People from Scandinavian countries, the Dutch, Germans, Austrians, Belgians, and the Portuguese tend to speak English extremely well.
Sweden has emerged as the nation with the highest English language proficiency, according to the EF EPI English Proficiency Index.
The United States and India have the most total English speakers, with 306 million and 265 million, respectively. These are followed by Pakistan (104 million), the United Kingdom (68 million), and Nigeria (60 million). As of 2022, there were about 373 million native speakers of English.
Finnish. Finnish is the official language of European countries like Finland and Sweden and is known as one of the hardest languages to speak and learn because of its complex case and vowel systems, hard grammar rules and the fact that the language is very different from its Latin and Germanic counterparts.
Firstly, it is because the British version is a classic universally recognized version of the English language. Secondly, the British version is richer and more diverse than American English. Thirdly, if you choose to study British English, you will form the most complete understanding of the grammar.
British English is 'correct' where it is spoken, and American or Australian English is correct in those areas of the world. While it might not seem clean and neat to have so many 'correct' versions of a language, that's just the way it is. Of course, all of these versions of English are perfectly interchangeable.
Option 1: the American accent
The most popular English accent of them all. Spread around the world by American cinema, music, television and more than 350 million North Americans (including Canadians, eh), this is the easiest accent for most people to understand, whether native speakers or non-native speakers.
The Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark are ranked the best countries in Europe to live in for English speakers. In the European Rankings for the EF English Proficiency Index, they scored 663, 641, and 636 respectively.
The New Zealand vowel system has undergone what linguists consider a “shift” in pronunciation. This means that a letter, such as “e”, no longer has the same pronunciation that the rest of the English world uses. For example: “Test” in New Zealand is pronounced as “Tist” = /e/ has become /i/.
South Africa
Possibly the cheapest English-speaking country to live in is South Africa. Not only can you get by without having to go to language school, but most South African cities also have a high standard of living, similar to Western cities, which will make the transition much easier.
Unlike some of the strong accents and dialects used back in England, the Australian accent was clear and easy to understand, because it was developed by people trying to understand each other!
Some people believe that RP (Received Pronunciation) is the most standard or general accent in British English. Many EFL (English as a Foreign Language) schools teach it because it is supposed to be the most “polished” pronunciation. It is typically referred to as “Queen's English” or “BBC English”.
Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is also regarded as the first world language. English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy.
Below is the UK transcription for 'blue': Modern IPA: blʉ́w. Traditional IPA: bluː 1 syllable: "BLOO"
In some European countries, both kinds of English are now accepted and taught. Some learners prefer American English because they believe it has fewer regional accents and dialects than British English does, experts say, and therefore is easier to understand and to use.
In most countries around the world, it's common to hear spoken English on television or in the cinema. For this reason, students may aspire to speak a sort of 'Hollywood English'. Others may consider the formality of British English, the 'Queen's English', the best English accent to learn.
At first, English speakers in the colonies and England used a rhotic accent. But after the Revolutionary War, upper-class and upper-middle-class citizens in England began using non-rhotic speech as a way to show their social status.
From a sociolinguistic point of view, British Standard English is seen as superior due to being the most widely used form in both spoken language and in most published media, such as textbooks, news broadcasting and documentaries. It is also generally associated by most people with a more highly educated speaker base.
Australian English often contains higher levels of nasal resonance to oral resonance. Resonance refers to voice acoustics and is determined by where the bulk of sound vibration from the voice is reinforced in the your face.