Foreign languages skills in Europe, by country

64.5% of inhabitants between 25 and 64 years of age in the European Union (EU) speak at least one foreign language, according to figures recently provided by Eurostat, for the year 2016.

The European country where a greater percentage of its population know at least one language other than its own is Sweden, with 96.6% of the inhabitants. It is followed by Denmark and Latvia (both with 95.7%), followed by Lithuania (95.6%) and Luxembourg (94.5%).

Spain is among the countries that are below the average of the European Union in foreign languages skills. 54.3% of Spaniards between 25 and 64 years of age speak a foreign language, exceeding only six countries.

The two countries with the least knowledge of foreign languages ​​are the United Kingdom (34.6%) and Romania (35.8%), according to Eurostat data.

51.2% of the population of Luxembourg analyzed in this study knows at least three foreign languages. Finland also has a significant percentage of the population (44.9%) that knows three other languages, as does Norway (43.7%).

5.2% of Spaniards speak three foreign languages, 14.3% speak two languages ​​other than their mother tongue and 34.8% speak a foreign language.

The following interactive chart details all the data by country: