From the media

91% of the Dutch say they can express themselves in a foreign language. This conclusion could be drawn after a recently held European inquiry. That is not a bad score. Only in smaller countries (boy, are there even smaller countries ;)) like Luxemburg and Malta, is the knowledge of foreign languages even better. Approximately half of all Europeans speak a second language. In the bigger countries, like France, Italy and Great Britain, not even half of the population speaks a second language.

Among the Dutch is English the most popular language. 87% say they can express themselves in this language. 66% can do the same in German and 24% can do this in French. I don’t understand why this is in the news this week. I thought the dull and silly season was already over, but apparently it isn’t. Most Dutch learn three languages while they attend school; of course Dutch, English and they can choose between German, French or Spanish.

Elsewhere in Europe English is also the preferred foreign language. One third of the Europeans say they can understand English; and that is not including the British and the Irish.