List of most commonly learned foreign languages in the United States
The tables below provide a list of foreign languages most frequently taught in American schools and colleges. They reflect the popularity of these languages in terms of the total number of enrolled students in the United States. (Here, a foreign language means any language other than English, and includes American Sign Language.)
Lists
Below are the top foreign languages studied in public K-12 schools (i.e., primary and secondary schools). The tables correspond to the 18.5% (some 8.9 million) of all K-12 students in the U.S. (about 49 million) who take foreign-language classes.[1]
K-12
K-12 students (2007-2008)
Rank |
Language |
Enrollments |
Percentage |
1 |
Spanish |
6,418,331 |
72.06% |
2 |
French |
1,254,243 |
14.08% |
3 |
German |
395,019 |
4.43% |
4 |
Latin |
205,158 |
2.30% |
5 |
Japanese |
72,845 |
0.82% |
6 |
Italian |
65,058 |
0.73% |
7 |
Chinese |
59,860 |
0.67% |
8 |
American Sign Language |
41,579 |
0.46% |
9 |
Russian |
12,389 |
0.14% |
|
Others[2] |
255,825 |
2.87% |
|
Total |
8,907,201 |
100% |
Colleges and universities
Below are the top foreign languages studied in American institutions of higher education (i.e., colleges and universities), based on fall 2013 enrollments.[3]
College and university students (2013)
Rank |
Language |
Enrollments |
Percentage |
1 |
Spanish |
790,756 |
50.6% |
2 |
French |
197,757 |
12.7% |
3 |
American Sign Language |
109,577 |
7.0% |
4 |
German |
86,700 |
5.5% |
5 |
Italian |
71,285 |
4.6% |
6 |
Japanese |
66,740 |
4.3% |
7 |
Chinese |
61,055 |
3.9% |
8 |
Arabic |
32,286 |
2.1% |
9 |
Latin |
27,192 |
1.7% |
10 |
Russian |
21,962 |
1.4% |
11 |
Greek, Ancient |
12,917 |
0.8% |
12 |
Hebrew, Biblical |
12,551 |
0.8% |
13 |
Portuguese |
12,415 |
0.8% |
14 |
Korean |
12,229 |
0.8% |
15 |
Hebrew, Modern |
6,698 |
0.4% |
|
Others |
40,059 |
2.6% |
|
Total |
1,562,179 |
100% |
List of top five most commonly learned languages by year
Grades K-12
Year |
Languages |
Source |
1 |
% |
2 |
% |
3 |
% |
4 |
% |
5 |
% |
2004-2005 |
Spanish |
72.9 |
French |
15.0 |
German |
4.2 |
Latin |
2.6 |
Japanese |
0.7 |
[1] |
2007-2008 |
Spanish |
72.1 |
French |
14.1 |
German |
4.4 |
Latin |
2.3 |
Japanese |
0.8 |
[1] |
Higher education
Year |
Languages |
Source |
1 |
% |
2 |
% |
3 |
% |
4 |
% |
5 |
% |
1960 |
French |
37.9 |
Spanish |
29.7 |
German |
24.2 |
Russian |
5.1 |
Italian |
1.8 |
[3] |
1968 |
French |
34.4 |
Spanish |
32.3 |
German |
19.2 |
Russian |
3.7 |
Latin |
3.0 |
1980 |
Spanish |
41.0 |
French |
26.9 |
German |
13.7 |
Italian |
3.8 |
Latin |
2.7 |
1990 |
Spanish |
45.1 |
French |
23.0 |
German |
11.3 |
Italian |
4.2 |
Japanese |
3.9 |
1995 |
Spanish |
53.2 |
French |
18.0 |
German |
8.5 |
Japanese |
3.9 |
Italian |
3.8 |
1998 |
Spanish |
55.6 |
French |
17.0 |
German |
7.6 |
Italian |
4.2 |
Japanese |
3.7 |
2002 |
Spanish |
53.4 |
French |
14.5 |
German |
6.5 |
Italian |
4.6 |
American Sign |
4.4 |
2006 |
Spanish |
52.2 |
French |
13.1 |
German |
6.0 |
American Sign |
5.1 |
Italian |
5.0 |
2009 |
Spanish |
51.4 |
French |
12.9 |
German |
5.7 |
American Sign |
5.5 |
Italian |
4.8 |
2013 |
Spanish |
50.6 |
French |
12.7 |
American Sign |
7.0 |
German |
5.5 |
Italian |
4.6 |
See also
References
- 1 2 3 "Foreign Language Enrollments in K–12 Public Schools" (PDF). American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). February 2011. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
- ↑ "Others" includes (in order of quantity) Native languages, Korean, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hebrew, Polish, Swahili, Turkish.
- 1 2 Goldberg, David; Looney, Dennis; Lusin, Natalia (February 2015). "Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2013" (PDF). Modern Language Association. Retrieved May 20, 2015.
External links
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