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UK voted worst country in Europe at learning other languages as world video dictionary launched

The vote was organised as part of the European Day of Languages

Charlie Atkin
Monday 26 September 2016 09:26 BST
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Video dictionary released as UK voted worst country in Europe at learning another language

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The UK is the worst country in Europe at learning other languages new data suggests.

As part of a vote organised for European Day of Languages, Britain was revealed to be the most monolingual country in the continent.

More than one in three (35%) chose Britain as the worst in Europe for communicating in any other language apart from their mother tongue. French citizens came second in the vote with 22 per cent, followed by Italy with eight per cent.

At the opposite end of the poll, the Netherlands was found to be the best at speaking additional languages with less than one per cent (0.3%) of people choosing the Dutch as the most monolingual nation of speakers.

Rated: Most Monolingual European Country

UK                           35.2%
France                    22.2%
Italy                         8.1%
Spain                      6.2%
Poland                    5.6%
Germany                4.2%
Greece                   3.0%
Portugal                 2.3%
Norway                  1.1%
Austria                   0.8%
Sweden                  0.7%
Denmark                0.5%
Netherlands          0.3%
Other                     9.8%

The data was released by language learning app Memrise, who have also compiled and launched the world's largest video dictionary.

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