Europe

The only people who are likely to take such a test in an anglophone country are immigrants ...

Would be interesting to see how native speakers score, though.

I find that broken English is easier to understand, compared to the time I talked to a Londoner in the bus, I could understand him but my travel buddy had no idea.

Accents can be rough on tourists.

I am fully expecting England to not be at the top. Especially if written skills are measured.

Everyone in France speaks English the moment an English speaker tries to speak French.

My French sucks. I would intentionally butcher French just so they’d roll their eyes and start speaking English.

The countries are ordered on the bend line according to their rank, so the 1-dimensional spatial coordinate system describing this line does have meaning.

This somwhat unusual representation has the advantage that they managed to represent all datapoints with a well readable font on a graphic that fits well even on a phone's screen, and it's sort of eye-catching.

It's pretty unintuitive, though. I had to actually read and analyse it rather than just view it.

Seems made for mobile.

It was skewed off the bottom of the scale by scouse.

The EF English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) attempts to rank countries by the equity of English language skills amongst those adults who took the EF test. It is the product of EF Education First, an international education company, and draws its conclusions from data collected via English tests available for free over the internet. The index is an online survey first published in 2011based on test data from 1.7 million test takers. The most recent edition was released in November 2023.

Wikipedia.org

So the data is not representative for the entire population of a country.

I don't know what study these numbers are based on, but many of them only assess certain (typically younger) age groups. In my experience, the people coming out of school today in Germany are often quite good in English.

Edit: Looked it up. The data are not based on any study but the results of test takers that aim to earn a certain language certificate. So no specific age group but still likely younger people. The sample is completely self-selected, though, so it's hard to say anything definitive. From the Wikipedia page:

The EF EPI 2024 edition was calculated using test data from 2.1 million test takers in 2023. The test takers were self-selected. 116 countries and territories appear in this edition of the index. In order to be included, a country was required to have at least 400 test takers.

And more:

The EF English Proficiency Index has been the subject of criticism in literature. From the point of view of methodology, it suffers from self-selection bias. Instead of testing the level of English proficiency in the population, it tests the level of English of those who self-select.

This seems like a very poor basis for a country ranking.

Currently in university or so, and there is a large countryside vs. city gap.

In my experience there has been a relatively recent massive improvement in English skills by the younger generation. Anyone 35+ is still very much behind though. As an elder Millenial myself, it actually caught me on a wrong foot carreerwise as being able to speak English well is no longer considered to be a selection criteria for many jobs, because so many can do it and it is assume a given.

Same with Austria. As a Dane living in Austria, it feels like nobody here has even half-decent English skills. It's horrible, and I blame generations of dubbed TV and movies.

French speakers being French speakers. Case in point: France scores lower than fucking Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index