12 Most Spoken Languages in the World
The most widely spoken languages non native speakers can benefit from learning
Welcome, aspiring polyglot! As we plan to take on the 2024 year, many people are likely setting up their resolutions. If you have been considering a second language, or know someone who has been, then you have quite the decision lying ahead. There are hundreds of languages in the world, some more useful than others, so how do you ensure you are choosing the one that is best for you?
While this is not a "how to choose the best language to learn" guide, it should give you some insight into what might be best for you. For the language nerds around here, there are also some fun facts that might convince you to spend a bit more time with one language or another. This is a special treat from our resident researcher @BowTiedPumpkin. Not active much on social media, but a rockstar researcher and information enthusiast. Keep an eye out for some more real world data in the near and distant future.
What is the most widely spoken language in the world?
The below graph shows how many speakers there are of each language and whether the speakers are native, second, or third language speakers. World languages are a wildly interesting topic and for those who are working to develop their language skills, much of the below information may be helpful. All the languages on this list are widely spoken and not all of them are necessarily the national language where they are spoken.
1. English
Total Speakers: 1.456 billion
Second Language Speakers: 1.077 billion
First Language Speakers: 380 million
Fun facts about the English language:
A new word is added to the dictionary every two hours.
During the course of a year, almost 4,000 new words will be added. Not to make learning English as a second language any more confusing!
Most English words come from French or Old English.
After the Norman Conquest in 1066, French became the language of the British nobility. The peasants and lower classes, however, continued to use Old English which was made up of Germanic vocabulary. The two languages began to mix, resulting in Middle English which is much closer to what we recognize as modern English.
Knowing this can be useful since using French based words are still considered more formal or sophisticated. For example, the words commence and begin both mean “to start”, but commence is considered a much fancier word. Next time you want to sound a bit more sophisticated, try to think of what synonyms you can use and if you’re curious look them up to see if they have French origin.
English is the official language of the air.
This means English is the official language of airplane travel. If you’ve ever traveled abroad, you may have noticed that pilots and flight attendants all speak English.
2. Mandarin Chinese
Total Speakers: 1.138 billion
Second Language Speakers: 199 million
First Language Speakers: 939 million
You may have noticed that though Mandarin is the second most spoken language in the world, it actually has the largest number of first language speakers. Makes you wonder why there are so few second language speakers. Anyone considering Mandarin as a second language?
Fun facts about the Mandarin Chinese language:
Instead of an alphabet, Mandarin uses characters that symbolize a syllable of spoken Chinese.
There are 50,000 different characters, but everyday Mandarin typically uses a set of some 2,500 characters.
Chinese is one of the oldest languages still used today.
Chinese characters were first seen in 1250 BC, over 3,000 years ago!
Mandarin is the most widely spoken Chinese language, but it is far from the only one.
Mandarin is the official language of China and Taiwan. However, there are many other forms of Chinese that are used throughout the region such as Wu, Xiang, Cantonese, Putonghua, Min, Hakka, and Gan, just to name a few.
3. Hindi
Total Speakers: 609 million
Second Language Speakers: 266 million
First Language Speakers: 345 million
Fun facts about the Hindi Language:
Hindi is a descendant of Sanskrit.
Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world, from which Hindi originates. Sanskrit and Hindi also share the same script, Devanagari, that both are written in.
Hindi is the official language of India.
There are many languages spoken in India, but Hindi holds the title of being the official language. English is also spoken in the region as a way to facilitate communication between various linguistic communities.
4. Spanish
Total Speakers: 559 million
Second Language Speakers: 74 million speakers
First Language Speakers: 485 million speakers
Fun facts about the Spanish language:
Spanish is the official language in 21 countries
Spanish is the official language of Spain, but its also official to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Equatorial Guinea.
1 out of 3 Americans speak Spanish
The United States is actually the second largest country with a Spanish-speaking population, behind Mexico. Over 41 million people speak Spanish in the USA.
Spanish is one of the fastest spoken languages spoken
Studies by the University of Lyon show that Spanish is the second fastest spoken language behind Japanese. Speakers average 7.82 syllables spoken per second.
If you are learning Spanish as your second language, the speed at which the language is spoken may intimidate you. Don’t be afraid to ask native speakers to slow down. Most people will be happy to help you understand and encourage your language journey.
5. French
Total Speakers: 310 million
Second Language Speakers: 229 million speakers
First Language Speakers: 81 million speakers
Fun facts about the French Language:
French is spoken in 51 countries
France’s overseas expansion and colonialism has resulted in many countries far and wide that speak French. 29 of these countries have also claimed French as an official language.
French is considered a romance language.
The romance languages are all derived from Latin origins and knowing one can help you learn another. You can see the similarities between French, Portuguese, Italian, or Spanish and sometimes even understand some or all of them if you speak one.
56%+ of English words originate from French
Some words in French look very similar to English words, such as salade (salad in English). However, there are many words that look like they could be an English word that are far from the same thing. Pain for example means bread in French as opposed to pain in English. Be careful you don’t confuse these “false friends” in either language.
6. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)
Total Speakers: 274 million speakers
Second Language Speakers: 274 million speakers
First Language Speakers: 0 (Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is not considered a first language, it is acquired through formal education. Arabic speakers first learn their respective local dialect.
Fun facts about the Modern Standard Arabic language:
MSA is uniform through the Arab world
Modern Standard Arabic serves as a lingua franca for speakers of various spoken dialects, some of which are not mutually comprehensible. It is learned as a second language in school and through exposure to radio, television, newspapers, magazines, and religion.
Many English words have Arabic origins
Examples of English words that have identifiable Arabic origins include alcohol, algebra, candy, cotton, giraffe, guitar, lemon, sugar, and many more.
Arabic does not contain capital letters
Quotation marks serve as a way to place emphasis on particular words as opposed to capital letters.
7. Bengali
Total Speakers: 273 million speakers
Second Language Speakers: 39 million speakers
First Language Speakers: 234 million speakers
Fun facts about the Bengali language:
Bengali is gender free
Bengali nouns are not assigned a gender, which leads to minimal changes in adjectives.
Bengali is an honorary official language in Sierra Leone
Bengali was declared an honorary official language in Sierra Leone in 2002. It was to honor the 5300 Bangladeshi troops that were part of Sierra Leone’s UN Peacekeeping Force. These troops played a significant role in ending the 11 years of internal civil war and restoring the peace of the country.
8. Portuguese
Total Speakers: 264 million speakers
Second Language Speakers: 27 million speakers
First Language Speakers: 236 million speakers
Fun facts about the Portuguese language:
Only 5% of Portuguese speakers live in Portugal
While Portuguese is the official language of Portugal, only 5% of speakers live in the country. The rest of speakers live in countries such as Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, and more. Brazil alone has about 80% of Portuguese speakers.
Portuguese language uses the same alphabet as English
The Portuguese alphabet was changed to the same alphabet as English in 2009. Originally, there were only 23 letters, with K, W, and Y missing. These were added to help with foreign loanwords such as “software” and “yoga”.
9. Russian
Total Speakers: 255 million speakers
Second Language Speakers: 108 million speakers
First Language Speakers: 147 million speakers
Fun facts about the Russian language:
Russian is the language of Space
Russian shares with English as the official languages of space. Astronauts have to learn Russian as part of their training. The computer system of the International Space Station uses both English and Russian.
Russian surnames vary by gender
Russian names consist of a first name, a family name, and a patronymic name, which is the father’s name plus the ending -ovich for a song and -ovna for a daughter. For example, if the father’s name is Ivan and has a son and daughter, the son’s patronymic name will be Ivanovich and his daughter’s will be Ivanovna.
10. Urdu
Total Speakers: 232 million speakers
Second Language Speakers: 161 million speakers
First Language Speakers: 71 million speakers
Fun facts about the Urdu language:
Reads from right to left
Most language red from left to right, however Urdu follows a right to left pattern.
The words “khaki”, “pajamas”, and “cummerbund” are derived from Urdu
These English words aren’t the exact terms but the essence of them have been derived from Urdu. “Khaki” means dusty or gray, “pajamas” means trousers and “cummerbund” means waist binding.
11. Indonesian
Total Speakers: 199 million speakers
Second Language Speakers: 155 million speakers
First Language Speakers: 44 million speakers
Fun facts about the Indonesian language:
Indonesian uses a unique system of affication
Words can be modified through the addition of prefixes, suffixes, or infixes to convey different nuances of meaning, create verb forms, or indicate aspects of time.
Indonesian has a relatively simple sentence structure
Compared with languages that have more intricate grammar rules, Indonesian follows a subject-verb-object sentence structure that makes it less complex.
12. German
Total Speakers: 133 million
Second Language Speakers: 58 million
First Language Speakers: 75 million
Fun facts about the German language:
The Bible was the first German translation
The first written translation in German culture was a copy of the Bible translated in the 4th century by a German bishop. Before this time, there was no official or widely used dialect of German. But eventually, German speakers grew familiar with the version of the language used in the Bible. It became the primary form of the German language spoken throughout the country. From this point forward, the German language and culture grew and expanded throughout Europe.
The longest German word is 36 letters long
The longest word is Rindfleischetikettierungsuberwachungsaufgabenubertragungsgesetz. This translates to “the law concerning the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and the labelling of beef.”
After researching these statistics, there were a few pieces of information that stood out as surprising:
Though German is the 12th most spoken language in the world, it is a top 5 second language and an often studied language on apps like Duolingo and Babbel.
Was there anything that stood out as surprising to you? Let us know in the comments and feel free to add any fun facts that you may know about these top spoken languages.
***The numbers and data regarding total speakers, second language speakers, and first language speakers were pulled from Ethnologue 2023.***
Conclusion
If your goal is to be bilingual by 2025, it is necessary for you to pick a language to start learning. Whether that is one of the most spoken languages in the world or something more obscure, the only thing that really matters is your determination to return and put work in even when you do not feel like it.
Knowing some of the intricacies and unique characteristics of various languages can aid in choosing where to begin, but you are never locked in, it is always possible to start another language. An unspoken benefit of working with more than one language is you will have more than one point of reference in most cases. For some insight on ways to set your 2024 language learning goals, make sure you check out this article:
[goal setting article 2024]
It is incredible that the public education system has convinced so many people that it will take years to become conversational in a new language. Using the second language strategies on the site you will find that you are able to make swift and meaningful progress. Picking up a foreign language at any speed is going to be challenging. But you can do difficult things and be great. So go do difficult things and become great. I will be here by your side endeavoring to do the same. I'll be here rooting for you and watching out for your successes in the meantime.
For more content check out Second Language Strategies dot com or find me on Twitter or Instagram. If you are struggling to get speaking in your target language, get up to 55% off a Babbel subscription using this link. I look forward to seeing everyone’s progress in the months and years to come. Don't forget to check out the YouTube channel and TikTok as well!