The survey, conducted by Wall Street Institute, showed that Hong Kong's confidence and proficiency in using English lags far behind its key regional competitor, Singapore, and is even worse than the mainland.

Overall, however, the SAR's English standard was second among the seven Asian countries surveyed.

More than 16,000 people responded to the survey conducted via the Internet in the mainland, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. According to the pollsters, 32.5 percent of the respondents had completed their senior secondary education and 53.8 percent were university graduates or higher.

Institute chairman Peter Forsythe said it is obvious that many Hong Kong people do not realize the importance of English to their daily lives.

Only 49.4 percent of the 4,836 Hong Kong respondents felt English was critical for productivity, compared with 77.6 percent (of 2,214 respondents) in Singapore and 57.8 percent (of 1,196 respondents) in Thailand.

Just 61.2 percent of the Hong Kong respondents considered English to be important in education, business and employment, against 91.7 percent in Thailand and 66.4 percent (of 1,305 respondents) in the mainland.

Just over half, 50.79 percent of the Hong Kong respondents, ``sometimes'' read English books or newspapers while 40.37 percent ``rarely'' did so. In Thailand, the ``sometimes'' figure was 55.84 percent.

About one-third, or 35 percent of the Hong Kong respondents, said they spent less than two hours a week reading in English.

However, 20 percent of those on the mainland and 21.66 percent in Thailand said they spent five to nine hours a week on English.

The institute's academic director, Tony Lee, said the mainland's interest in the English language received a boost after Beijing was awarded the right to host the 2008 Olympics and Shanghai was chosen for the 2010 World Expo.

``On the other hand, Hong Kong's economy has been declining in recent years and many companies are moving north, which is a further dampener on the learning of English,'' he said.

In Hong Kong, a mere 21.3 percent of respondents said they would take every opportunity to communicate with native English speakers. This compares with 55.4 percent in Singapore, 29.6 percent in Thailand and 23.2 percent on the mainland who jump at the opportunity to speak in the language.

Sixty percent of the Hong Kong respondents said they will communicate with native English speakers only when required.

This was because just 19 percent of them felt comfortable when communicating with native English speakers - about the same level as Japan and Thailand. More than 30 percent were afraid to speak English.

In Singapore, however, 60 percent said they were comfortable when communicating with native English speakers, and only 14.8 percent were afraid of making mistakes.

``In Hong Kong, students are taught in the traditional way which focuses on grammar. Therefore, people here do not have much experience in speaking and feel embarrassed when asked to talk to foreigners,'' Forsythe said.

While 66.4 percent of the Singaporeans said they use English to communicate with friends all the time, 48.9 percent of the Hong Kong people said they rarely used the language with friends.

Sixty percent of Singaporeans said they were comfortable when using the English language to date members of the opposite sex, compared with more than 75 percent of those in Hong Kong who said they never used English when dating.

Hong Kong also lagged Singapore in the section where respondents were asked to rate their own English ability.

Only 4.8 percent of the Hong Kong graduates were brave enough to say their English was ``native-like'' though 44.4 percent said they had ``no problem'' with the language. In Singapore, the figures were 25.9 percent and 46.6 percent, respectively.

For those with post graduate degrees, 16.7 percent in Hong Kong said their English was ``native-like'' compared with 31.9 percent in Singapore.

The institute warned that Hong Kong's international competitiveness, which relies partly on English proficiency, will continue to lag Singapore, the mainland and Thailand should people in the SAR not take action to improve their understanding of the language.

teddy.ng@singtaonewscorp.com