lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 3, 2017 14:04:33 GMT
Map: most spoken non native languages in European countries
It is interesting to see how likely you are to be able to communicate using a foreign language when you travel in Europe. The following map shows the most common foreign languages in which people in a certain country are able to hold a conversation. Quite unsurprisingly, English is dominating, since it is the first foreign language almost all children in the EU learn. However, a much more interesting structure emerges when we look at the second most common foreign language. Here we can see that French and German are also quite important in Europe, and they aren’t lagging much behind English in terms of the actual percentage of people who speak them in many countries. The situation in the Great Britain and Spain looks strange at first sight, but it is due to large communities that do not speak the predominant language as their mother tongue. Finally, on the map of the third most spoken foreign languages, we can see that German is quite popular in most of Europe, and that Romance languages other than French are also moderately popular. Again, the situation in Germany and Ireland is caused by large communities not speaking the predominant language as their mother tongue:
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jul 3, 2017 15:19:16 GMT
Some interesting details here, including the relative popularity of German in Greece, despite recent poor relations between the two countries.
Why is the most important 2nd language in the Irish Republic reported as Irish? I'm guessing that's a mistake? Interesting here that French in a more popular 2nd language than English there despite historical, economic and geographical connections.
I can understand that there are a lot of people in Britain and Spain who have the local language as their 2nd language given immigration but a bit surprised that's not the same in France? Although possibly France has been more determined that the children of immigrants learn French as their 1st language?
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 3, 2017 15:27:49 GMT
Why is the most important 2nd language in the Irish Republic reported as Irish? I'm guessing that's a mistake? Interesting here that French in a more popular 2nd language than English there despite historical, economic and geographical connections. Acodring to wiki and i might be wrong Irish is spoken as a first language by a small minority of Irish people and as a second language by a larger group of non-native speakers like Flemish is a dialects based on the Dutch language.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jul 3, 2017 15:43:07 GMT
Why is the most important 2nd language in the Irish Republic reported as Irish? I'm guessing that's a mistake? Interesting here that French in a more popular 2nd language than English there despite historical, economic and geographical connections. Acodring to wiki and i might be wrong Irish is spoken as a first language by a small minority of Irish people and as a second language by a larger group of non-native speakers like Flemish is a dialects based on the Dutch language. Possibly I was misunderstanding then. So the majority 1st language is English I presume but its also the 3rd most popular 2nd language, presumably among those who speak something other than English as their 1st language? That's what I was overlooking I suspect. Just because its the most popular 3rd language doesn't mean it can't also be the 3rd most popular 2nd language. Which seems strange when you think about it but does make sense. .
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 3, 2017 16:11:31 GMT
Acodring to wiki and i might be wrong Irish is spoken as a first language by a small minority of Irish people and as a second language by a larger group of non-native speakers like Flemish is a dialects based on the Dutch language. Possibly I was misunderstanding then. So the majority 1st language is English I presume but its also the 3rd most popular 2nd language, presumably among those who speak something other than English as their 1st language? That's what I was overlooking I suspect. Just because its the most popular 3rd language doesn't mean it can't also be the 3rd most popular 2nd language. Which seems strange when you think about it but does make sense. .
Yes it makes totally sense how you explain it.
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