When I look at the ranking on p. 4, English does not appear to be very relevant. Switzerland is #31, but Greece #8. Romania is #12 just two places behind Germany #10. Italy is #46, France #49. India #69, China #91, Japan #92, Thailand #106.
The diagrams on p. 13 all have correlation coefficients (r values) between 0.56 and 0.61, which signify only moderate associations. And the causality from language to success behind such associations is very likely even weaker. In other words, people from many countries are good at English because their country is economically advanced (and not the other way round).
I think that on an individual level, it is very desirable to be able to at least read English very well because it opens up so many resources on the Internet. However, when it comes to economic impact, the ranking seems to suggest an extremely tenuous link at best. In addition, foreign language skills are likely to become even less relevant in the future as translation software improves.
This just seems like analyzing something until you’ve turned yourself around. By “extremely relevant” I don’t mean r=1. I just mean it matters.
Imagine doing that same analysis on a report of a country’s metal deposits. I’m sure it would be all over the place. But saying this topic isn’t worth writing ten words about would be silly.
The diagrams on p. 13 all have correlation coefficients (r values) between 0.56 and 0.61, which signify only moderate associations. And the causality from language to success behind such associations is very likely even weaker. In other words, people from many countries are good at English because their country is economically advanced (and not the other way round).
I think that on an individual level, it is very desirable to be able to at least read English very well because it opens up so many resources on the Internet. However, when it comes to economic impact, the ranking seems to suggest an extremely tenuous link at best. In addition, foreign language skills are likely to become even less relevant in the future as translation software improves.