本文基于“中国语言文字使用情况调查”的原始数据，讨论全国和京沪津等七个大城市的居民自报外语阅读能力、会话能力和使用频度。分析发现，全国学过外语者自评外语阅读能力平均而言稍弱于“能看懂简单句子”，会话能力稍弱于“会说一些问候的话”，使用频度偏向于“几乎不用”；在这三方面，七市的均值普遍显著高于全国均值，这很可能是因为这些城市聚集了较高比例的较高学历者；七市与全国在均值差异的效应幅度上的不同，也可能与受访者的学历有关。

This paper analyzes the raw self-reported data from the national “Survey of Language Situation in China” concerning residents' foreign language reading proficiency, spoken proficiency and frequency of language use, with special references to seven metropolises. In the three surveyed areas, the national averages were rather low, while the averages of most of the seven cities were statistically significantly higher than the national averages, probably because respondents with relatively high education qualifications were over-represented in the city samples; the effect sizes for the differences between the cities' averages and their national counterparts differed amongst those cities, which might be partially attributed to the factor of education qualification.

国家语委语言文字应用“十五”科研重点项目“语言文字国情调查数据库建设及其深度开发”（ZDI105-65）