Which countries primarily speak english

In other words, only a portion of the population speaks it or it is only used in certain contexts, like in school or tourism settings.

Because this can be a confusing question, I have broken the following list down to 70 countries that speak English. Keep reading to find the full list and the explanation of why each country or territory has been included in this count. If one of the countries below catches your eye, FluentU is a great place to start learning different types of English.

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As we mentioned above, the U. Many countries in the Caribbean speak English as well. Here are the countries and territories that speak English as an official language :. It is important to note that although English is the official language, many of the people who live in these countries do not speak English, and may communicate mostly in Spanish, French, French Creole or other languages during their daily lives.

English is used for official documents and formal written communications, whereas Setswana is primarily used as a spoken language. Including English and Setswana, there are over 30 different languages spoken throughout diverse Botswana. Africa: The 10 best places to go and what to do there. Guyana is the only country in South America with English as the official language.

This is a leftover byproduct of British colonization — Guyana gained independence in Although English is the official language, most Guyanese have Guyanese Creole as a first language. India has two national languages: English and Hindi. As a result, when native and non-native English speakers are combined, it is recognized as the single most widely-spoken global language. In fact, English is recognized as an official language in a total of 67 different countries, as well as 27 non-sovereign entities.

English is perhaps most commonly associated with the United States and the United Kingdom; the two largest English speaking countries. It is believed that there are around million native speakers in the United States, making it the largest English-speaking country, while the United Kingdom has approximately 60 million native speakers. Despite having two different official languages, Canada has the third largest English-speaking population, with somewhere in the region of 20 million native speakers, while Australia is next in the list, with around 17 million.

Some of the other notable countries around the world where English is the primary language include the Republic of Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand. There are pockets of English speakers spread throughout, however. Europe is home to roughly million English speakers, and nearly every country in the continent has a sizable population.

In the United Kingdom, where English started all those centuries ago, there are about 60 million English speakers. This breaks down to After the United Kingdom, Germany has the most English speakers with This is followed by France Germany, for example, only has about , native English speakers. As in the Caribbean, a number of African countries have English as an official language because of colonialism. In all of Africa — a population of about 1. But following the pattern of a number of other continents, a number of Africans have learned English as a second language.

Around million people in Africa speak English in total including native and non-native speakers. The greatest number of English speakers are in Nigeria, where there are about million people who speak at least some of the language. Nigeria is followed by Uganda 29 million , South Africa 16 million and Cameroon 9.