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hyporational comments on How to choose a country/city? - Less Wrong
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I've found the data on proficiency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index , but not on willingness to talk the language. Which countries would you consider to be the least willing? France and Italy are pretty low on proficiency for an European country, it mightn't be just unwillingness.
Because of self selection that data is probably flawed to the point of uselessness.
Low proficiency and unwillingness go hand in hand more or less, but it seems to me that people in some countries take more pride in their culture and language than others. France, Greece and Italy fit in that category better than Scandinavian countries for example. I suspect that the longer independent history these countries have and the bigger players they are, the more prideful they are.
My home country, Finland, has a very short independent history, and is also a demographically small country. People are very willing to speak english here.
I'd be shocked if you found it common in Greece for people to be able to speak English but refuse to, like the French/Germans are known to do.
Greeks are proud of their language/culture/whatever to a severe fault, but they don't have pretensions of being a world language that others ought to know.
World language pretentions are another factor entirely, seemed to be a real problem only in France. I can't say I've met any people who outright refused to speak english if they clearly knew it, I'm just saying that in some countries you have to push it a bit more. If you're Greek, you probably know better.