The report, called the EF English Proficiency Index, is a yearly report card on the English level of adults in 70 countries. Sweden leads the world, while Libya is last. EF, a private education company, produced the report.
The average level of adult English proficiency is up. But not all countries are improving. A few are even getting worse.
Europe leads the rankings. It is no surprise that Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway take the top four places. These countries have excellent public education systems and native languages that are structurally similar to English.
In almost every country surveyed, women speak much better English than men. But in the northern European countries, the gender gap is very small.
France is the exception in Western Europe. Its English proficiency is much lower than its neighbors. The French take great pride in their national language. The report says France’s poor performance could be due to a “cultural aversion” to English. France ranks below less-developed countries Indonesia, Ukraine, and Peru.
Turkey has the lowest English proficiency in Europe. Its ranking has gone down since 2012. The report says Turkey’s emphasis on grammar and memorization discourages students. But with its young population, it could improve quickly if it took the right education reforms.
Very high
Sweden though 
