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Countries where over 90% of the population can speak English (i.redd.it)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz
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[–] 9 points 1 year ago (11 children)

This map makes me wonder if Icelandic/Norwegian are in any danger considering how much of their population speak English(Which has much more content and speakers)

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Sort of with Icelandic. There's a very noticeable decline in Icelandic vocabulary among high school students.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Wait, this is amazing! A real Icelander actually replied!

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    people still speak the native language most of the time, sweden isn't that far behind on amount of people who can speak english (mostly just old people lowering the percentage), and i'm almost certain what's going to happen is just that our languages incorporate a shitload of english loan words and phrases, like a lite version of taglish in the phillipines

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Sweden is one of the non-obvious countries (that being places that aren't like... UK, USA, Australia, etc) that I would have expected to be on this map. So that makes sense that that they're close, just not 90% or higher.

    Although I've never been to Sweden, so admittedly my assumption wasn't based on anything.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    honestly it still feels a bit wrong that we don't reach 90%, even my grandma could understand and probably stammer out the odd sentence if she had to, and everyone is exposed to english all the time.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I could imagine immigrant communities being a factor as well. I think there's a wide range of English proficiency among people who are born abroad (at least that's my impression from speaking to people studying Swedish). Given that we have a bit more immigration than Norway, that could definitely be a deciding factor.

    (Maybe I'm just grasping at straws. Don't wanna be losing to Norway, right?)

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I'm surprised Philippines isn't regarded as over 90% in Asia they are second only to Singapore which indeed has a blue dot.

    I think it depends on how strict a definition you put on it. According to pna.gov.ph less than 9% of adults dont use English at all. And I guess this doesn't include taglish, because I dont think they mean mixing the word shorts into the language is using English

    So I guess its a matter of definition, if you can afford to go to school nearly everyone can speak English, if you can't go to school English proficiency drops but over 90% at least use English sometimes. As from 4th grade they primarily use English to teach in school for most subjects

    At least in Norway and Iceland (yes nearly other European countries as well) translate Disney movies to their local language. The Philippines doesn't, they serve English as English is one of the two official languages and has been since it was US territory.

    I was surprised when sitting in the back of the class of first grade in Norway that most kids wasn't able to use English conversationally (yet), but that is just my ignorance, and rather I should be surprised to see most kids knew basic words in English instead. But its hard to have perspective when my multilingual daughter had conversational English from 2 years

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