44% of the adult Bulgarians do not speak any foreign languages whatsoever, according to an Eurostat survey.

Hungary is first in the ranking - 75% of the adults (aged between 25 and 64) there say they do not speak any foreign languages. It is followed by the UK (65%), Portugal (51%), Spain (47%), Bulgaria (44%), Greece (43%), and France (41%).

An average of 36% of the adults in all of the EU 27 do not speak any foreign languages, according to the Eurostat data. Just as many - 36% - say they use one foreign language, and 28% - that they speak two or more foreign languages.

Norway, which is also included in the survey, boasts the largest percentage of adults speaking two or more foreign languages - almost 75%; it is followed by Slovenia (72%), Lithuania (66%), and Belgium (51,5%).

The UK seems to have the worst prospects as far as foreign language knowledge is concerned with 51,5% of the high school students taking no foreign language classes, and 42,5% taking only one foreign language, most often French. Only 6,1% of the high school students in the UK take two foreign languages. The percentage for Greece is 6,9%, and for Ireland - 8,2%.

At the same time, almost 100% of the high school students in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Finland take at least two foreign languages.

The Eurostat survey is published in advance of the European Day of Languages - September 26, which has been celebrated since 2001 at the initiative of the Council of Europe.

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