SECTION ONE: Comprehension.
Read the following dialogue then do the activities below.
'And Europe's Worst Linguists Are…'
Tuesday February 20 BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The British are the European Union's (EU) worst linguists while those of Luxembourg are the best, according to an EU poll published Monday. Almost two-thirds (2/3) of British know no language apart from their mother tongue, the highest figure recorded in the 15 EU countries.
That compares to just 2.2 percent in Luxembourg, 12.3 percent of Danes and an EU average of 47.3 percent of people who speak no other language but their own, the poll of 16,000 EU citizens said.
But British travelers to Europe need not worry.
English is the most common second language in the EU, spoken by 41 percent of the EU's citizens. In Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, at least 78 percent of people speak English as a 
second language.
Although 47 percent of EU citizens know only their mother tongue, there is wide agreement that speaking a foreign language is a good thing.
Across the EU, 72 percent of those polled believe foreign language skills are useful, 71 percent of them said everyone should know one foreign language and 69 percent said everyone should speak English.
The reasons given why people do not learn languages were lack of time, lack of motivation and the cost of language lessons.
Reuters Limited Text © 2001.
ACTIVITY 01: What or who do the underlined words in the text refer to?
