% in each country who can hold a conversation in English.
Hmm, let’s see now. If you want to find an English speaker, leaving aside the UK and Ireland for now, what are your best bets? It turns out that more people in The Netherlands speak English than in any other European country. Close behind are Sweden and Denmark. After that, it is Austria, Crete and Finland. Further behind still are Slovenia, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, Greece and Estonia.
Bringing up the rear are Latvia, and then even further behind are Lithuania, France, Poland, Italy and Romania.
The worst places of all to find someone to speak English to are Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Spain and Hungary.
Of course, your mileage may vary. A friend of mine from Sweden, who speaks English well, was just visiting his brother in Barcelona, Spain. The brother speaks Swedish, Spanish and Catalan now. My friend does not know Spanish or Catalan so he has to try to communicate with people in English, but he told me it was hard because “no one speaks English here.”
It is pretty amazing that Spaniards are some of worst in Europe at speaking English.
