Danes among the best in the EU for fluency in languages

On average, 2.8 languages are spoken proficiently by every person

Jan 16, 2015

When it comes to the average number of languages spoken per country in Europe, Denmark is fourth, according to the Czech linguist Jakub Marian.

On average, the Danes speak 2.8 languages – the best in the Nordic region and behind just Luxembourg (3.6), the Netherlands (3.2) and Slovenia (3.0).

Marian's research is based on the European Commission's 2012 Eurobarometer 386 survey, which he used to combine the percentages of bilingual people to calculate the average number of languages spoken per nation.

Hungary bottom
Norway is not on Marian's list because it's not in the EU, but Sweden is and scored 2.5, just behind Finland, which scored 2.6.

The four least bilingual nations in the EU were Hungary (1.5), Britain (1.6), Ireland (1.6) and Portugal (1.6).

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Danes among the best in the EU for fluency in languages

New US Arctic security strategy co-opts Denmark as Russia deterrent

Anti-whaling activist and Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson arrested in Greenland

Migratory birds bring dangerous ticks to Denmark

Planes grounded in CPH as worldwide IT outage hits airlines, media and banks

CrowdStrike director: IT outage issue “has been identifed”

Foreign labour contributes DKK 76 billion to Danish economy in three months

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How internationals can benefit from joining trade unions

Internationals in Denmark rarely join a trade union

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