Share of Europeans speaking foreign languages 2022

Turkey was the European country which had the largest share of its citizens self-reporting that they could not speak any foreign language, with almost 82 percent saying they were unable to do so. The United Kingdom and Bosnia and Herzegovina also had over 60 percent of their citizens self-reporting not being able to speak a foreign language. On the other hand, Slovenia, Sweden, and Estonia all had less than five percent of their populations stating they could not speak another language other than their country's main language. Slovenia, Luxembourg, and Norway were the three countries with the most citizens stating they could speak three foreign languages. On average, 37 percent of EU citizens report speaking one foreign language, 22 percent speak two, and 8.6 percent speak three, while 32 percent report speaking none.

Ireland stands as an outlier, as all citizens of the north-western European country self-reported as speaking a foreign language. This is, however, actually, a result of how the question was asked, as respondents interpreted English as being a foreign language (in the sense of not being native to Ireland), in spite of it being one of the two official languages in the country (alongside Irish) and being spoken by the vast majority of the population in Ireland as their first language.

Share of citizens in European countries self-reporting that they speak a foreign language in 2022, by country

Characteristic	No foreign language	One foreign language	Two foreign languages	Three foreign languages
Turkey	81.8%	15.9%	2.3%	0%
United Kingdom	65.4%	20%	9.6%	5%
Bosnia and Herzegovina	61%	30.8%	7.5%	0.7%
Albania	59.9%	25.9%	10.9%	3.2%
Bulgaria	51.8%	34.5%	11.2%	2.5%
Hungary	51.3%	30.6%	14.2%	3.8%
Romania	51.2%	35.2%	12.3%	1.2%
Spain	43.7%	34.6%	15.8%	5.8%
Italy	32.1%	37.5%	22.8%	7.6%
EU average	31.8%	37.3%	22.2%	8.6%
North Macedonia	31.7%	38.6%	20%	9.7%
Portugal	30.1%	31%	25%	14%
Greece	28.8%	55%	13.1%	3.1%
Poland	27%	47.3%	20.5%	5.2%
France	22.4%	34.6%	29.9%	13.2%
Czechia	22.1%	46.6%	24.5%	6.8%
Belgium	22%	25.1%	29.5%	23.5%
Germany	21.3%	41.7%	26.6%	10.4%
Croatia	20.6%	50.3%	23.2%	5.9%
Slovakia	14.4%	30.3%	34.2%	21.1%
Serbia	11.9%	57.9%	23.5%	6.6%
Austria	11.4%	53.3%	24.5%	10.8%
Denmark	9.8%	29.2%	33%	28.1%
Switzerland	8.3%	19.7%	35.5%	36.5%
Malta	8.2%	32.4%	43.2%	16.2%
Cyprus	8.1%	61.5%	21.2%	9.2%
Norway	7.9%	26.9%	21.5%	43.7%
Finland	7.8%	20.4%	33.6%	38.1%
Netherlands	7%	20.7%	32%	40.2%
Luxembourg	5.5%	17.2%	23.1%	54.2%
Latvia	5%	26.3%	52.7%	16%
Lithuania	4.6%	38.3%	47.7%	9.3%
Estonia	4.5%	19.3%	43.2%	33%
Sweden	4.1%	50.8%	32.3%	12.7%
Slovenia	4%	16.6%	23.1%	56.3%
Ireland*	-	54.1%	33.5%	12.4%

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Release date

November 2023

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Region

Europe

Survey time period

2022

Supplementary notes

*Ireland has two official languages (Irish and English). While the vast majority of the population of Ireland speak English as their first language, for the purposes of this survey it was treated as a foreign language.

Values for some countries come from years before 2022. They are as follows:
2016: EU, Germany, Malta, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom. Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Albania.
2011: Turkey.

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