In which regions of the world is knowledge of English still comparatively limited?

[Tooting Carmen]

The key operative word is 'comparatively'. My thoughts are:

Latin America
Spanish acts as a lingua franca throughout most of Latin America and even to some extent among such immigrants and their descendants in the US. Knowledge of English is particularly low in Central America (bar Costa Rica and Panama) and the Andean countries, and even in the less touristy parts of Mexico it isn't that widespread either. Ditto Cuba, DR, Brazil and the Southern Cone. Even in Puerto Rico, a bilingual US colony since 1898, many still speak little or no English.

Northeast Asia
China is a big and powerful country, with Mandarin acting as a lingua franca. English would be reasonably widely-spoken in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but not much elsewhere in the vast country. And while South Korea and Japan may in some ways be very Westernised, knowledge of English is poor and mostly confined to basic phrases and they usually write better than they speak, especially outside their respective capital cities. Meanwhile, North Korea is very isolated and in its own way so is Mongolia, so forget them.

Central Asia
Those countries are generally quite poor and isolated, and while independent since 1991 they still use Russian as a lingua franca even today, aside from their local languages.

Francophone Africa
French acts as the lingua franca in most of Central and West Africa bar Nigeria, Ghana and Gambia, as well as in most of North Africa. Still, even knowledge of French is far from universal in those countries, so why would knowledge of English be in double digits percentage-wise?

[Bellbeaking]

france

[Tooting Carmen]

france

That is a country, not a region. And all surveys show that knowledge of English is much better there than in most of Southern and Eastern Europe, let alone the aforementioned regions of the world.

[Bellbeaking]

That is a country, not a region. And all surveys show that knowledge of English is much better there than in most of Southern and Eastern Europe, let alone the aforementioned regions of the world.

It is a country and also a region. A region can be anything XD. I think they have bad English when you take into account their proximity to the UK and their geographic position (NW Europe). I think all the examples you gave are good ones and hard to decide between. Much of Russia may also be a candidate.

[Tooting Carmen]

It is a country and also a region. A region can be anything XD. I think they have bad English when you take into account their proximity to the UK and their geographic position (NW Europe). I think all the examples you gave are good ones and hard to decide between. Much of Russia may also be a candidate.

France is by some distance the worst in NW/Central Europe, true, but still better than most of Southern and Eastern Europe. And you're right about Russia - maybe I should've said Eurasia rather than merely Central Asia.

[Tooting Carmen]

N.B. It is a multiple poll, so you can vote for more than one option.

[Tooting Carmen]

One interesting omission of mine is the Middle East. While Arabic theoretically acts as the lingua franca in most of the region, in the immigrant-heavy Gulf Arab countries English has to a considerable extent supplanted it as the main tool of communication.

[Latinus]

As far as I know, (South) Koreans are better at English than Japanese people.
I have the impression that the country of South Korea is more Westernized than Japan, they also have a much smaller population compared to Nippon, which makes their society more competitive, since their market is more limited, they focus more on the overseas and having better English fluence.

[Ruggery]

France is by some distance the worst in NW/Central Europe, true, but still better than most of Southern and Eastern Europe. And you're right about Russia - maybe I should've said Eurasia rather than merely Central Asia.

Italy has a good command of English at almost the same level as France and Portugal too, maybe you mean Spain and Greece.

[Ruggery]

As far as I know, (South) Koreans are better at English than Japanese people.
I have the impression that the country of South Korea is more Westernized than Japan, they also have a much smaller population compared to Nippon, which makes their society more competitive, since their market is more limited, they focus more on the overseas and having better English fluence.

If I have also noticed that, it seems that Koreans like Westerners more than Japanese, perhaps because Japanese people from their culture are very nationalistic.