LONDON, November 13. /TASS/. Russia ranks 41st in the newest English language proficiency rankings, with Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yekaterinburg leading the country in this respect, according to a global survey by EF Education First - English Proficiency Index (EF EPI).

The rankings are based on data from 2.2 mln people in 113 countries and regions around the world. Non-native English speakers took a test created by EF Education First in collaboration with experts in language learning and psychometrics, as well as certification exam developers.

Russia fell one spot from last year, but still remained among the cohort of countries categorized as having an average level of English proficiency. Russia scored 532 on the EF EPI index. Thus, the country was tied for 41st place with Bolivia, sandwiched between Albania and Uruguay (tied for 39th position), and Cuba and France (tied for 43rd place). Among the leaders in Russia’s category are Honduras, Georgia, Belarus and Ghana, ranked 31st to 34th.

EF Education First conducted its first global language proficiency survey in 2011. Back then, Russia ranked 32nd out of 44, 41st (out of 100) in 2020, 51st (out of 112) in 2021, and 40th (out of 111) in 2022.

Cities and regions

According to the rankings, Russia’s best English speakers still reside in large cities. However, the situation has changed dramatically in the past year. Moscow scored the same as the previous year (542); however, it came in fourth place. St. Petersburg scored 544 points and ranked third, behind Novosibirsk (546) and Chelyabinsk - scored a high of 559 points. Yekaterinburg also entered the top five cities with a score of 541.

This year's index of Russian regions ranges from 458 to 547 points out of a maximum of 700. In a year's time, the Moscow Region fell 20 spots (516) and fell out of the top five regions in terms of English proficiency. The Kaluga Region managed to stay in the top five, although it dropped from second to fourth place. The Primorsky Region (540), which was previously 19th, also entered the top five. The Novosibirsk Region (547) topped the rankings, while last year’s leader, the Sverdlovsk Region (539), dropped to third place. Rounding out the top five is the Republic of Tatarstan, which scored 535 points and moved up four positions over the year, to put them in a tie with the Voronezh and Kaliningrad Regions (535). The Republic of Bashkortostan scored the lowest - 458 points.

"Despite the significant turn to the East that we are all witnessing, English has been and remains the main language of international communication, and the final growth of even two points (Russia had 530 points in the rating in 2022 - TASS) confirms that Russians are indeed interested in learning English. Not only are we not decreasing in quality, but thanks to a stable base within the country, as well as due to the increasing number of foreign trips, including for English learning purposes, we continue to grow and not fall in the annual rankings. The demand for Asian and other languages will clearly grow, but English will remain the language of communication for the whole world," Dmitry Fedorov, Director of EF Education First in Russia, said commenting on the rankings.

This year, the top-ranked countries were the Netherlands (647), Singapore (631) and Austria (616). The top ten also included Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, South Africa and Germany. Yemen (392), Tajikistan (388) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (385) were at the bottom of the rankings.