What percentage of secondary school students studies a foreign language in Europe?

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In most European countries, it’s quite common that a majority of the population can speak a foreign language. For a continent with so many countries and so many different languages, it’s of course not too surprising.

The education system is one of the reasons so many people in Europe can speak a foreign language. As we can see on this map, three quarters of all secondary students in the countries on this map, study one or more modern foreign language. Although this doesn’t guarantee that these students will end up being able to speak the languages taught, it does provide them with the tools to acquire that knowledge.

The lowest shares of secondary school students that study a foreign language, can be found in Denmark (76.0%) and Iceland (80.2%). Two countries that are known for having a population that can speak English very well. Ireland has the third lowest share, 80.6%. Which is still impressively high, considering that English is an official language in Ireland, which give the Irish people less of a need to study a foreign language.

There are many countries in Europe where the share of secondary school students studying a foreign language is close to 100%. However, there are 5 countries where an impressive 100% of all secondary students study a foreign language: Liechtenstein, Malta, North Macedonia, Romania and Sweden.

Data for this map comes from Eurostat.