The 7 Most Studied Languages on Earth
Believe it or not, there are times when going along with the crowd can have benefits.
If you’re asking yourself, “what language should I learn?” choosing a well-studied language may just be your answer.
Sit back and I’ll walk you through seven of the world’s most studied languages and what makes them so valuable for their many students.
Contents
- 1. English
- 2. French
- 3. Chinese (Mandarin)
- 4. Spanish
- 5. German
- 6. Italian
- 7. Japanese
- And One More Thing...
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
1. English
Number of learners: 1.5 billion
English is the most-studied language. It’s the only language that tallies more than a billion students.
Across the globe, more than 520 million speak English as a native or additional language, and it’s the official language of more than 50 countries.
It’s no surprise that English is so popular or heavily studied. In many nations, global content—think news, politics and entertainment—is often initially reported in English. And since it’s one of the world’s most widely spoken languages, it facilitates global communication—even in countries where it isn’t necessarily the official language.
Numerous international organizations and companies use English as the language of choice when conducting business, so English speakers have a leg up in many employment situations. English is one of the working languages of the United Nations and is the official language of the World Bank.
Fun fact: As a speaker of English, you can amuse your friends with the popular pangram (a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet), “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Say that three times, fast!
2. French
Number of learners: 82 million
French is the only language other than English that’s spoken on five continents! Total, more than 220 million people speak French, making it the sixth most widely spoken language in the world.
Many language learners are interested in French because it’s a smart investment. French is one of the fastest growing languages in the world, with 750 million people expected to speak it by 2050.
According to an executive job recruiter, French is also one of the languages that’s in demand among businesses in the U.K., so this is a great option if you’re located there and want to expand your professional opportunities without moving.
Fun fact: When the French Revolution took place, not all French citizens spoke the nation’s mother tongue. In fact, 75 percent spoke something other than French. And until the 1800s, people in Holland and Germany spoke more French than people living in some parts of France did. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? But the language made up for all that, with French speakers tripling since 1945.
The surge in popularity looks poised for even further expansion!
3. Chinese (Mandarin)
Number of learners: 30 million
16 percent of the global population—or 1.39 billion people—speak Chinese as a native or additional language. It’s no wonder that number’s so high, considering China is the most populous nation in existence, with more than 1.3 billion citizens.
Chinese has a reputation as being difficult for English speakers to learn, but that may be a misconception. Because Chinese has no verb tenses and no gender rules to memorize, among other elements, it’s actually a great option if you want to learn a new language without tearing your hair out over grammar.
You probably won’t be surprised that Chinese also carries significant potential in the business world. (Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, is a Chinese language learner!) China is home to one of the world’s oldest continuous cultures, yet it’s jettisoned itself into position as a global economic powerhouse. The Great Wall is the backdrop to newly-emerging business opportunities.
Fun fact: There are over 50,000 written Chinese characters! When I was in China, I spent a lot of time admiring the characters and photographing them. I didn’t understand a word but they were still highly intriguing.
4. Spanish
Number of learners: 14.5 million
There are 389 million total Spanish speakers in the world and Spanish is the official language of 21 nations.
But you don’t need to be located in Spain or Latin America for the language to be useful to you. Did you know the U.S. actually has more Spanish speakers than Spain does—and is projected to be the country with the most Spanish speakers anywhere by the year 2050?
These facts make Spanish an especially popular language for residents of the U.S. looking for employment opportunities or those who just want to be able to communicate with more of their neighbors.
But how about if you want to expand your communication abilities beyond physical boundaries? Spanish is the third most widely used language on the internet behind English and Chinese!
Many English speakers also choose Spanish because it’s considered one of the less difficult or time consuming to learn. The FSI (Foreign Service Institute) ranks it as a Category 1 language—easy to learn with only 600 hours of study time needed to achieve proficiency.
Fun fact: It’s helpful to know that Spanish is called both Español (Spanish) and Castellano (Castilian). A language that needs two names? Definitely noteworthy!
5. German
Number of learners: 14.5 million
There are 132 million native German speakers and 95 percent of Germany’s population speaks German as their first language.
Many business sectors involve German companies. BMW, Adidas, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, among others, are German-owned so people who’re thinking of working for some of these economic biggies often consider the language behind the companies to be useful.
German is also a vocabulary-lover’s dream! There are several amazingly long words in the language—they’re probably not easily pronounced by beginning learners but are loads of fun to learn, regardless.
Fun fact: German has what is called compound nouns, which means that you can shove together a bunch of nouns and adjectives to make a new compound noun. This brings about words such as Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, which clocks in at 63 letters, and means “beef labeling supervision task transfer law.” It even takes 24 letters to say “little matchbox”: Streichholzschächtelchen.
Let’s just hope we never get these on a spelling test!
6. Italian
Number of learners: 8 million
Italian has 67 million total speakers. Italy’s thriving economy and its place as a solid market for U.S. exports make this beautiful language a contender among internationally-minded learners as well as academics and culture-lovers.
We all realize that Italy’s famous for its art and culture. That’s been the case since the Roman Empire. But present-day Italy melds both the old-world treasures (Michelangelo, anyone?) with economic openings that anyone with a working fluency of the language could find life-changing.
Fun fact: If you’re wondering how this language spread across Italy and Europe, wonder no more. Dante’s famous “Divine Comedy” is widely credited for the spread of the Italian language. Today, 15 percent of the Italian words in use can be traced back to the man some consider “the father of the Italian language.”
7. Japanese
Number of learners: 3 million
Across the world, 123 million people speak Japanese as a native or additional language.
There are many factors that motivate learners to undertake Japanese. Some reasons are fairly basic, and range from employment opportunities to educational exchange programs—popular organizations like the JET Programme make it possible for English speakers to live and work within Japanese communities while improving their language skills.
Another motivation that fuels many language learners is the desire to understand Japanese anime in its original language.
Fun fact: There are two major dialects of this melodic language, Eastern Japanese and Western Japanese.
So there you have it, a breakdown of the world’s most studied languages. As you can clearly see, languages become widely studied for many reasons.
Now that all the facts are laid out, are you ready to become one of millions of language learners? Are you ready to add one of these popular languages to your repertoire?
You can actually study every one of these languages on FluentU with one subscription. And in addition to these seven, FluentU also has programs in Korean, Russian and Portuguese.
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Sign up by November 28th to receive a 60% discount with our Black Friday sale!
You can’t go wrong choosing a language from this list. And you’ve got everything to gain and nothing to lose—so why not go for it? Good luck!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
And One More Thing...
If you dig the idea of learning on your own time from the comfort of your smart device with real-life authentic language content, you'll love using FluentU.
With FluentU, you'll learn real languages—as they're spoken by native speakers. FluentU has a wide variety of videos as you can see here:
FluentU has interactive captions that let you tap on any word to see an image, definition, audio and useful examples. Now native language content is within reach with interactive transcripts.
Didn't catch something? Go back and listen again. Missed a word? Hover your mouse over the subtitles to instantly view definitions.
You can learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU's "learn mode." Swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you’re learning.
And FluentU always keeps track of vocabulary that you’re learning. It gives you extra practice with difficult words—and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You get a truly personalized experience.
Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Sign up by November 28th to receive a 60% discount with our Black Friday sale!
