Let us look at the top 6 English speaking countries in the world, but before that let us know some background about it. Approximately a whopping 840 people speak English in the World. English is known as the global business language and there are around 335 million people who speak English as their first language. 505 million people speak English as their second language. No wonder people look forward to learning the English language and finding English learning classes. The demand to join an English learning course is very high. You might be surprised to have a look at the top 6 English speaking countries in the world.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The United States of America is one of the world’s largest English speaking countries where approximately 225 million Americans speak English as their first language and 43 million Americans speak English as their second language. The total makes a grand of 268 million American English speakers which makes the USA the largest English-speaking population in the world.
INDIA: India stands second on the list of the world’s most English-speaking countries. India consists of only 226,449 of the ones who speak English as their first language. The remaining people speak it as their second language. In a 2012 article, BBC reporter Zaheer Masrani had noted that the patchwork state of English education means that many Indians speak “not so much English as Hinglish’’, also known as Indian English which is a mix of English and Hindi, one of the official languages in India.
PAKISTAN: Yes, Pakistan stands third on the list of the world’s most English-speaking countries. Along with Urdu, English is one of the official languages spoken in Pakistan. However, nobody in Pakistan really speaks English as a first language. The Urdu language is always the preferred choice. Approximately 49% of the population in Pakistan speak it as their second language. Pakistan accounts for almost 94,321,604 English speakers.
PHILIPPINES: Philippine country has two official languages namely Filipino and English. Around 37,000 people speak English as their first language. Although, a little over 92% of the philippine population speak it as the second language. In the island nation, it is estimated that there are 90 million English speakers.
NIGERIA: At times we wonder why we receive so many sales emails from Nigeria as compared to Kenya or Zimbabwe. There could be many reasons to think about but the relatively high percentage of English speaking people is probably one of them. Approximately 53% of the population which is 79 million people who speak English in Nigeria. It has a small percentage and has awesome native proficiency in the English language.
UNITED KINGDOM: We did not expect to find the United Kingdom so down the list! 98% of the UK population speak English but the UK is comparatively small in size and the population means that larger countries like Nigeria and the Philippines actually have more English speakers. The UK consists of 59.6 million speakers owing to its relatively small population and that’s what makes them 6th on this list.
The above listed were the topmost English-speaking countries; after all, it is the most spoken language in the world.
