Russian, German and English are the foreign languages most known to Slovaks, with 54 percent having fair/good command of Russian, 49 percent of German and 46 percent of English, according to an analysis presented by the Public Affairs Institute (IVO) on Tuesday, May 31.
However, in terms of language proficiency, Slovaks speak English best and then German, the TASR newswire quoted the analysis as finding.
Other languages spoken by Slovaks are French (7 percent), Italian (4 percent) and Spanish (3 percent). The study, entitled Language Proficiency of People in Slovakia: German in Comparison with Other Languages, was commissioned by the Goethe Institute and funded by the German Foreign Affairs Ministry. It was carried out by IVO in March 2011 on a sample of 1,086 Slovaks aged 15 and over.
According to IVO, 5 percent of Slovaks have a fair/good command of four to six world languages, 16 percent of three languages, 32 percent of two and 29 percent of a single world language, with 19 percent unable to speak any of the six languages surveyed.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
