Hong kong how many people speak english

Chart 1. Cantonese was still the most commonly used language by the Hong Kong population. Yet the proportion of population aged 5 and over who could speak the language decreased slightly from Besides, Among these other Chinese dialects, the three most commonly spoken ones were Hakka, Fukien and Chiu Chau.

Analysed by age group, those aged and had the highest literacy rate i. Also, Any time you are stuck or need directions — your best bet is to find a policeman! It may take a few days to adjust to the how the locals pronounce certain words. See here for a breakdown of where some of the pronunciation is different from what you might be used to.

Any time you venture away from these main tourist areas, you will find the prevalence of English becomes less. Smaller restaurants and shops in less central areas and also taxi drivers are some scenarios where you may struggle, though as we said they will often be able to call over someone who does speak English.

If you stay in some less luxurious hotels 3 star or less or deal with older people over 60, then also expect less people to speak English. Also have your hotel staff write down the names of places you want to visit in Cantonese to hand to cab drivers to avoid any confusion with where you want to go. For some of the smaller and medium sized restaurants, some of the waiters may not be able to speak much English.

If this happens they usually just call over the manager or someone else who does speak English. Having some basic phrases in the local language also helps — see our section below. One way or another you can still get by.

In general since the handover of Hong Kong to China in , Mandarin has become the more important language, with the emphasis on English declining, although there have been some efforts to improve the teaching of English in schools.

Tourist experiences are actually somewhat mixed on the issue of how prevalent English was when they were there. Some people report being able to go for many days in a row there only speaking English and get on fine; others reported they were surprised by the lack of English there and did sometime struggle to be understood.

Save statistic in. XLS format. PNG format. PDF format. Show details about this statistic. Exclusive Premium functionality. Register in seconds and access exclusive features. Full access: To this and over 1 million additional datasets Save Time: Downloads allow integration with your project Valid data: Access to all sources and background information. Exclusive Corporate feature.

Corporate Account. Statista Accounts: Access All Statistics. Basic Account. The ideal entry-level account for individual users. Corporate solution including all features. Statistics on " Hong Kong " The most important statistics. The most important statistics.

Further related statistics. Most common languages spoken in India U. Further Content: You might find this interesting as well. Statistics Most common languages spoken in India U. Learn more about how Statista can support your business.