Estonia tops language list

TALLINN- Estonia is one of the European Union member states having the largest percentage of residents who speak at least two foreign languages according to a new report by the EU statistical office Eurostat.

Of Estonian residents of ages 25-64, 55.9 percent said they spoke two or more foreign languages. By this criterion Estonia ranks fifth among EU nations.

About 30.4% of residents in Estonia speak one foreign language, while 13.6% speak no second language, shows the study published on the occasion of the European Day of Languages celebrated on 26 September.

The list was topped by Slovenia, where 71.8 percent of residents said they spoke at least two foreign languages, followed by Slovakia with 68 percent, Finland with 67.9 percent and Lithuania with 66.1 percent. Latvia was in sixth place after Estonia with 54.9 percent.

According to the survey, English is the most commonly spoken foreign language in two-thirds of EU member states. Russian is the most widespread foreign language in the three Baltic countries, Poland and Bulgaria. Of these countries, Lithuania has the highest ratio of speakers of Russian as foreign language.

In the UK the most common second language is French, and in Slovakia, the Czech language.
The poorest command of foreign languages was reported in Hungary 's three in four Hungarians said they spoke no foreign language at all. The percentage of such people was 51 in Portugal, 47 in Spain, 44 in Bulgaria and 43 in Greece. The survey was based on data for 2007.