The North of Portugal speaks better English
Today’s proposal for reflection concerns a change of concept. Contrary to what we are used to, there has been a change in orientation (orientation shift) and, according to current data, it is now in the north of the country that English is spoken better. And this one? (https://eco.sapo.pt/2022/12/07/leiria-braga-e-viseu-sao-os-distritos-onde-melhor-se-fala-ingles/).
Well, much can be said about this change, somewhat motivated by Covid-19, which led to the movement of people out of large centers and, truth be told, in some cases, we are referring to a return to origins. All this may have contributed to this new repositioning in the general picture of cities where English is better spoken as a non-native language. We can even forget the “tacky” English, which was practiced in the Algarve (All-Garve, for some), and the English of the islands. Now we have changed the “needles” to Leiria, Braga and Viseu, as the districts in Portugal where English is best spoken as a second language. According to the report, this change is not only reflected in younger people. This change knocked the major urban centers such as Porto and Lisbon from the podium, which moved to fourth and sixth places, respectively. There is clearly a change in times and we have to reposition ourselves in the face of the facts and as shown in the image below.
If we consider only the cities, we can say that Braga leads the ranking, followed by Coimbra. These values were calculated in more than 2.1 million people who are not native speakers of English but who speak it. There are even those who consider that this change in positioning reflects the impact of the pandemic with the geographical changes in the areas of residence of many people (of which I am an example). Thus, in concrete terms, the level of competence in the city of Braga stands at 640 points, alongside the best cities in the world, such as Amsterdam (673 points), in the Netherlands, and Copenhagen (664 points), in Denmark. Coimbra has 631 points, Porto registers 630 and Aveiro and Lisbon (in ex aequo) 622 points, in fifth place among Portuguese cities.
In general terms, Portugal dropped two positions, in terms of its world positioning, with a reduction of 11 points in the index, regarding skills in the domain of the English language, occupying the non-place. Portugal was overtaken by Finland (moved to eighth place) and Sweden (changed to seventh place). Despite this “repositioning”, Portugal still maintains high levels (high level of proficiency) in terms of mastering the English language. In general, the leadership is in charge of the Netherlands, Austria and Norway, in the first, second and third positions, respectively. In turn, and in the opposite direction, we will find Laos, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yemen, at the bottom of the ranking, in 111th, 110th and 109th places, respectively. Meanwhile, countries like Turkey, Ukraine, Spain, Greece and Italy belong to the group of countries with the most improvements in terms of mastering the English language over the last year.
As already mentioned, we cannot say that it is only the youngest who influence this new positioning, as there is also a new repositioning for the 50 age group (the 50 now are the 30 in the old days). For this reason, the data show that the level of mastery of the English language is also improved among adults, over 25 years old. Strictly speaking, the group of people over 40 was the one who most improved their level of proficiency in English. In turn, the level in the population between 21 and 25 years old remains unchanged (as it is). And there is even a reduction of 50 points for the population between 20 and 18 years old. On the other hand, if we consider the positioning in terms of gender, men managed to hold a better position than women. But this does not detract from the ladies, because the Portuguese achieved a high level, with 606 points, well above the average of around 511 points. We are all congratulated.