Can you actually talk to them?
EF English Proficiency against the pooled male-to-female ratio of the cities we carry in each market.
Dot area is the number of cities carried in that market. Colour is the pooled ratio on the shared 94/100/112 scale.
What the chart says
- There is no trade-off curve here, just a scatter. High-English markets appear at both ends of the ratio range, and so do low-English ones.
- The pooled ratio is not the national ratio. It is every city this site carries in that market, added together — a different population from the country.
All 19
Every market carrying both an EF score and at least one city.
| # | Market | EF EPI band | EF EPI score | Cities carried | Men per 100 women, pooled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ROU | Very High | 605 | 8 | 94.8 |
| 2 | POL | Very High | 600 | 6 | 93.1 |
| 3 | KEN | High | 593 | 6 | 92.5 |
| 4 | CZE | High | 582 | 10 | 102.0 |
| 5 | MYS | High | 581 | 6 | 120.1 |
| 6 | ARG | High | 575 | 9 | 95.9 |
| 7 | PHL | High | 569 | 7 | 102.8 |
| 8 | KOR | Moderate | 522 | 2 | 103.4 |
| 9 | PER | Moderate | 519 | 3 | 93.4 |
| 10 | VNM | Moderate | 500 | 7 | 99.5 |
| 11 | BRA | Low | 482 | 6 | 93.5 |
| 12 | COL | Low | 480 | 8 | 97.2 |
| 13 | IDN | Low | 471 | 6 | 102.1 |
| 14 | JPN | Very Low | 446 | 4 | 90.7 |
| 15 | MEX | Very Low | 440 | 6 | 105.3 |
| 16 | THA | Very Low | 402 | 4 | 94.2 |
| 17 | KHM | Very Low | 390 | 6 | 96.9 |
| 18 | USA | Native-majority | None | 19 | 102.4 |
| 19 | CAN | Native-majority | None | 10 | 100.0 |
EF EPI is a self-selected online test, so it measures the English of people who chose to take an English test, not of the population.
Where this is wrong
- EF EPI is self-selected. Its own documentation says the sample is not representative — it skews young, urban and motivated, which is arguably the population you would meet, but it is not the country.
- 18 markets is a small scatter. Do not read a trend line into it; there is not one to read.
- Pooling cities is not a national figure, and a market carrying one city is one city.
- 23 cities are held back, not missing. Every UK city, and most of Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea, ship census arrays that are not population counts — a few hundred people against multi-million cities, and Belfast computing to 158 men per 100 women off 173 people. They are excluded until the source is rebuilt.
Sources
English: EF English Proficiency Index 2025. Age by sex: national statistics offices per market. Built with Python and matplotlib.
The same numbers drive the research desk, where you can filter and sort every city here, and city rankings.
Country-level EF scores sit next to each city's own ratio and cost, so you can see what the trade actually costs you.
The per-market deep-dives — 13 tabs of cost, visa, tax, safety and sub-national ratio for one country — are behind the Pro gate. Everything on this page is not.