These Are the Top Countries to Visit if You're (Only) an English Speaker

If your first (and only) language is English, traveling around certain foreign countries might be difficult due to language barriers. Obviously, English-speaking countries like Ireland and the United Kingdom are easiest to navigate for Americans abroad, however, the EF Proficiency Index has provided a list of the top countries around the world that best handle (or, perhaps, tolerate) English speakers in 2018.

The ranking system goes as follows: about 88 countries and regions were analyzed and broken up into five groups based on their levels of English proficiency. The top spot went to Sweden, which had a score of 70.72 with a majority of skilled English speakers located in the capital city, Stockholm. Other top contenders include the Netherlands, Singapore, Norway and Denmark in that order. At the bottom of the list is Cambodia, Uzbekistan, Iraq. Bringing up the rear is Libya, which takes the 88th and last spot in English proficiency with a score of 39.64.

So what do these statistics mean? According to the EF website, use of English measures quite a lot when it comes to understanding the countries and cities in which they are (or aren't) spoken in. Countries ranked toward the top of the list generally pulled higher numbers in other statistics like social progressiveness, economic variety, technological advancements and job abundance.

To take a look at the full ranking of all 88 countries, check out the EF study here.