In this article, we will look at the 20 countries with the worst English accents in the world. If you want to skip our detailed analysis, you can go directly to the 5 Countries with the Worst English Accents in the World.
English is one of the most spoken languages in the world, with approximately 1.5 billion speakers around the globe. It is recognized as an international business language and is taught as a mandatory skill in most of the countries. According to a report by The University of Winnipeg, 142 countries worldwide teach English as a mandatory element of their national curriculums. Moreover, 41 countries treat it as a popular foreign language.
Speaking good English brings enhanced business opportunities and attracts growth and profitability. According to a survey conducted by EF English First, business customers were willing to pay 16% extra to a supplier with a high level of English proficiency. On the other hand, 53% of the respondents view organizations without a good grasp of English as unprofessional. In addition, the subsequent research on the survey found that a high level of English proficiency could help grow your business by 31% in 5 years.
Economic Analysis of Countries with the Best English Accent
According to data, the United States, the United Kingdom, and European countries have the best English accents. These highly proficient English-speaking countries are also recognized as some of the world’s most advanced economies.
According to the World Economic Outlook Report 2024 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the growth in the advanced economies is projected to slow down slightly to 1.6% in 2023 and 1.5% in 2024 before rising again to 1.8% in 2025. In the United States, growth is anticipated to decline from 2.5% in 2023 to 2.1% in 2024, attributed to stringent fiscal and monetary policies and a deceleration in aggregate demand within the labor market. On the other hand, the economic growth in the euro region is expected to recover from 0.5% in 2023 to 0.9% in 2024, finally reaching 1.7% in 2025. The resilient comeback of the European economy is due to strong household consumption after a drop in inflation and oil prices and an improvement in real income growth. You can also look at the 12 Most Profitable Foreign Languages To Learn and Top 25 Most Spoken Languages In The World 2024.
The economic outlook for the United Kingdom remains stable, with growth forecasted to increase from 0.5% in 2023 to 0.6% in 2024 and projected to reach 1.6% by 2025. These growth projections are moderate due to the influence of persistently high energy prices within the UK. Nevertheless, declining inflation rates and an uptick in real income are key drivers fueling this economic expansion.
Key Players Leading the Economy of the United States
The United States is one of the leading economies of the world and it is also one of the countries with the highest English proficiency. Foreigners from various countries learn English and move to the United States, seeking better employment opportunities. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, the immigrant share of the total workforce in the United States reached an all-time high of 18.6% in 2023. Moreover, the immigrant labor force in the United States grows by 2.3% each year. You can also read about the 15 Biggest Bilingual Cities in the US.
Some of the players leading the economy of the United States include Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL).
Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is a leading international retail sales and cloud services provider specializing in consumer products, advertising, and subscription services through online and physical stores. On February 26, Amazon Web Services (AWS) an Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) company, announced its plan to launch an AWS infrastructure region in Mexico by 2025. The new AWS region in Mexico will allow developers, entrepreneurs, enterprises, and governments to run their applications from local data centers located in Mexico. Moreover, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) plans to invest more than $5 billion in Mexico over the next 15 years to develop Latin America.
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) is a global technology company based in California, United States. On January 30, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) reported strong earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2023. The company reported earnings per share of $1.64 and beat estimates by $0.04. The company’s revenue for the quarter grew by 13.49% and amounted to $86.31 billion, ahead of market consensus by $1.03 billion. Here are the comments from Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Q4 earnings call:
From here, we are going to bring in more AI features and look forward to more strong growth to come. Next, Google Cloud. Throughout 2023, we introduced thousands of product advances, including broad Gen AI capabilities across our AI infrastructure, our Vertex AI platform and our new Duvet AI agents. In Q4, our product and Gen AI leadership enabled us to win and expand relationships with many leading brands including Hugging Face, McDonald’s, Motorola Mobility and Verizon. Google Cloud offers our AI Hypercomputer, a groundbreaking supercomputing architecture that combines our powerful TPUs and GPUs, AI software and multi-slice and multi-host technology to provide performance and cost advantages for training and serving models. Customers like Anthropic, Character AI, Essential AI and Mistral AI are building and serving models on it.
Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) is another leading international technology company based in California, United States. On February 2, Apple Inc’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) revolutionary spatial computer, Apple Vision Pro, arrived in Apple stores across the United States. The company announced the launch of the Apple Vision Pro on June 5, 2023, at Apple Inc’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference, and the pre-ordering began on January 19. Apple Vision Pro transforms how people work, collaborate, connect, and view entertainment. The device blends digital content with the real world, allowing the user a powerful spatial experience controlled by natural and intuitive inputs. The Apple Vision Pro is compatible with over 1 million applications available across iOS and iPadOS.
These were a few of the top companies from the US, a country for which many polish their English skills in order to seek employment and lead a life. With that said, let’s take a look at the countries with the worst English accents in the world.
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Our Methodology
To curate the list of 20 countries with the worst English accents in the world, we utilized data from the 2022 IELTS test taker performance, primarily focusing on speaking band scores. Additionally, we incorporated English First’s English Performance Index scores and overall IELTS scores for each country as well. The list’s ranking follows a descending order based on the IELTS speaking score band, serving as our primary metric, followed by the EPI Score as our secondary metric, and the overall IELTS score as our tertiary metric. When a tie-breaker was necessary, the secondary and tertiary metrics were used based on their priority. We have also mentioned population data for countries sourced from the World Bank.
The rationale behind using IELTS speaking scores was that this test is a globally renowned standardized test for English language proficiency for non-native English speakers. The IELTS band scores are ranked from 0 to 9, where 9 indicates an expert language user, and 0 indicates a non-user.
Important notes: Our list includes special administrative regions such as Hong Kong, the special administrative region of China. Our list does not reflect our opinion, it is a ranking based on the aforementioned data and methodology.
20 Countries with Worst English Accent in the World
20. Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China)
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 6.3
EPI Score: 558
Average IELTS Score: 6.7
Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, is 20th on our list of countries with the worst English accent. Hong Kong had a population of 7.3 million in 2022 and speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, and English as its official languages. Hong Kong has an average IELTS speaking score band of 6.3 and an EPI score of 558.
19. Myanmar
Average IELTS Speaking Score Bank: 6.3
EPI Score: 450
Average IELTS Score: 6.6
Myanmar ranks 19th on our list with an average IELTS speaking score band of 6.3. It is situated in South Asia and had a population of over 54.1 million in 2022. The country’s official language is Burmese, which is spoken by approximately 75% of the population.
18. Bhutan
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 6.3
EPI Score: N/A
Average IELTS Score: 6.1
Bhutan is a landlocked country in south-central Asia. The country speaks Dzongkha as its official language, with Sharchopkha and Lhotshamkha being the other commonly spoken languages. Bhutan has an average IELTS speaking score band of 6.3 and ranks 18th on our list of countries with the worst English accents.
17. Pakistan
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 6.2
EPI Score: 497
Average IELTS Score: 6.2
Pakistan is a multiethnic country situated in South Asia. It had a population of 235.8 million in 2022 and has Urdu as its official language. Other commonly spoken languages in the country include Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Balochi, and Punjabi. Pakistan ranks 17th on our list of countries with the worst English accent, with an average IELTS speaking score of 6.2.
16. India
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 6.1
EPI Score: 504
Average IELTS Score: 6.2
India ranks 16th on our list of countries with the worst English accent. It is a South Asian country that comprises 28 states and eight union territories. India had a population of 1.42 billion in 2022 and speakers of various languages. Some commonly spoken languages in India include Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, and Tamil. English and Hindi are used as the official state language of the country. India has an average IELTS speaking score band of 6.1 and an EPI score of 504.
15. Bangladesh
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 6.1
EPI Score: 504
Average IELTS Score: 6.1
Bangladesh is an Asian country that borders itself with India and Myanmar. It had a population of approximately 171.2 million in 2022. The official language of Bangladesh is Bengali, which is spoken by around 98.8% of the total population. Bangladesh ranks 15th on our list with an average IELTS speaking score band of 6.1 and an EPI score of 504.
14. Kazakhstan
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 6.1
EPI Score: 415
Average IELTS Score: 6.3
Kazakhstan is a landlocked country in central Asia. Kazakhstan speaks Kazakh as its official language, with approximately 83.1% of the population speaking Kazakh. Other languages spoken in the country include Russian and English. Kazakhstan ranks 14th on our list of countries with the worst English accent and has an average IELTS speaking score of 6.1.
13. Saudi Arabia
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 6.1
EPI Score: 408
Average IELTS Score: 5.8
Saudi Arabia ranks 13th on our list of countries with the worst English accents in the world. It had a population of 36.4 million in 2022 and speaks Arabic as its official language. Saudi Arabia has an average IELTS speaking score band of 6.1 and an EPI score of 408.
12. Cambodia
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 6.0
EPI Score: 421
Average IELTS Score: 5.9
Cambodia is a Southeast Asian country with a population of approximately 16.7 million people in 2022, according to World Bank data. The official language of Cambodia is Khmer, which is spoken by approximately 95.4% of the total population. Cambodia ranks 12th on our list of countries with the worst English accent and has an average IELTS speaking score of 6.0.
11. South Korea
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 5.9
EPI Score: 525
Average IELTS Score: 6.2
South Korea is an East Asian country bordering the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea. According to World Bank’s data, South Korea had a population of 51.6 million in 2022. Most of the country’s population speaks Korean, the official language, whereas English is used and taught as a second language.
10. Nepal
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 5.9
EPI Score: 507
Average IELTS Score: 6.1
Nepal is an Asian country situated at the foothills of the Himalayan mountain range. The country speaks various languages, Nepali being the official language and Marathi, Bhojpuri, Urdu, and Tharu being commonly spoken. Nepal ranks 10th on our list of countries with the worst English accent and has an average IELTS speaking score band of 5.9.
9. Qatar
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 5.9
EPI Score: 482
Average IELTS Score: 5.5
Qatar is an independent emirate situated in the Persian Gulf. It is a small country with a population of approximately 2.7 million in 2022. While Arabic is the country’s official language, English is a preferred second language. The country ranks 9th on our list with an average IELTS speaking score band of 5.9.
8. Vietnam
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 5.8
EPI Score: 505
Average IELTS Score: 6.2
Vietnam is a Southeast Asian country, ranking 8th on our list of 20 countries with the worst English accents in the world. According to World Bank data, the country had a population of more than 98.1 million in 2022. While the official language of Vietnam is Vietnamese, English is considered the preferred second language in the country. Vietnam has an average IELTS speaking score band of 5.8 and an EPI score of 505.
7. Kuwait
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 5.8
EPI Score: 461
Average IELTS Score: 5.5
Kuwait is an Arab country with a population of approximately 4.27 million in 2022. The official language of Kuwait is Arabic; however, English is considered a commonly spoken language. Kuwait ranks 7th on our list with an average IELTS speaking score band of 5.8 and an EPI score of 461.
6. Thailand
Average IELTS Speaking Score Band: 5.8
EPI Score: 416
Average IELTS Score: 6.1
Thailand ranks 6th on our list of 20 countries with the worst English accent in the world and has an average IELTS speaking score of 5.8. It is a Southeast Asian country with a population of more than 71.7 million in 2022. The country speaks Thai as its official language, and other languages, including Malay and Burmese, are spoken by only 2.9% of the total population.
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Disclosure: None. 20 Countries with the Worst English Accents in the World is originally published on Insider Monkey.