According to Irish students who have spent a period of abroad for education or training, the most important benefit is "Improved academic knowledge". 34% of Irish respondents to an EU Survey cited this reason - the only country to place this benefit in the top position. The second and third most important benefits were "improved foreign language skills (31%) and awarness of another culture (30%)".

The survey confirms that English is the most commonly used language when it comes to reading and watching content on the Internet in a different language than one's own: almost half of Internet users in the EU (48%) would use English at least "occasionally" while Spanish, German and French would be used by 4% to 6% of users. Again practice varies greatly between Member States: 90% of Internet users in Cyprus, 97% in Malta and 85% in Greece and Sweden use an English language website if the information is not readily available in their language, but only 35% of Italians, 45% of Latvians, 47% of Romanians and 50% of French would do likewise. On the other hand, Luxembourgers prefer to use French (67%) and German (63%) to English (55%). In the UK and Ireland, where not many Internet users mentioned using a second language, French was the most commonly used foreign language for reading or watching content on the Internet (9% and 7%, respectively).