Learning languages is always fun and a journey that most of us would encounter. Fancy learning a new language but pretty much undecided?
We have wrapped up a few statistics and languages to start you off.
Don’t forget to take part in our Language Poll at the end of the article – See where you stand in language learning!
Top Languages for 2018
English
More than 375 million people are native English speakers. As many as 1.5 billion people use it to some extent. English is the most influential in the world by far, making one of the most important languages.
195 countries in the world and 67 nations have English as their ‘official’ primary language. There are also 27 countries where English is spoken as a secondary ‘official’ language.
French
French used to be the primary language of diplomatic discourse for centuries. Today, 79 million people primarily speak French, but the overall number of speakers climbs up to 370 million, which really proves how important this language is.
French is an official language in 29 countries across five different continents, most of which are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the community of 84 countries which share the official use or teaching of French.
Spanish
Spanish is also one of the most widespread languages. There are around 330 million native speakers, while more than 420 million use it at least as their second language.
Spanish is the primary language in more than 20 countries, the majority of which are situated in Latin America.
Chinese/Mandarin
There is not a single language in the world with more native speakers than the Chinese language and dialects with over 1.2 billion native speakers as of 2004.
Varieties of the language are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely on the basis of the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials:
- Mandarin, including Standard Chinese, Pekinese, Sichuanese, and also the Dungan language spoken in Central Asia
- Wu, including Shanghainese, Suzhounese, and Wenzhounese
- Gan
- Xiang
- Min, including Fuzhounese, Hainanese, Hokkien, Taiwanese and Teochew
- Hakka
- Yue, including Cantonese and Taishanese
Japanese
Another Asian language is on the list of most important languages due to this country’s economic strength and influence. Around 127 million speak Japanese natively and one more million use it to some extent.
Though it seems difficult to comprehend its symbols at first, Japanese is a beautiful language and not much more demanding than many European counterparts.
German
Germany has been Europe’s most dominant economy for decades and its language is the most spoken in the European continent. Along with 105 million native speakers, there are also 80 million people around the globe who use it as their second language.
Arabic
This is the official language of the Arabic League, which consists of not less than 22 countries. There are more than 205 million people in this region but the language gains additional strength from another 100 million non-native speakers worldwide.
During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As a result, many European languages have also borrowed many words from it.
Hindi
Hindi is the standardised language of India and several other surrounding countries. Its 450 million primary users and additional 200 million non-native speakers make Hindi the forth most spoken language on Earth.
But its relevance also lies within the power of country’s economy. India is the seventh largest economy in the world and is expected to grab second position by 2050.
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Expose yourself to a new language at Agape School of Education through our carefully crafted Courses. Be able to say “J’aime le français!” or “Saya suka Bahasa Melayu sekali!”.
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