Spanish children study English, but do they actually learn it?

A study published by Eurostat on Thursday showed that nearly every child in primary education in Spain is studying English.

The study shows that 99.6 percent of children under 12 in Spain are studying a foreign language and that for 99 percent of them, the language they are studying is English.

That ranks Spain just behind Austria, (99.7 percent) in the list of non-English speaking countries where the language is taught, while the numbers are also impressive for students who are aged 11 and over.

At that level, 99.4 percent of students study English, compared with 38.7 who study French and 3.1 percent who are learning German: a level just below that of Scandinavian countries where 100 percent of students in lower secondary school have English in their school curriculum.

However, one thing that the Eurostat study doesn't do is measure the level of proficiency of Spanish students in comparison with their neighbors, making it hard to know whether Spanish youngsters speak English as well as their European counterparts (and competitors in a European job market.)

Part of the problem may be that while many countries, for example Portugal, broadcast English or U.S. TV shows in their original version with subtitles, these same shows in Spain are dubbed into Spanish, meaning youngsters don't get the chance to learn passively as they watch their favorite shows. Endit