Most popular foreign languages

Today, speaking English is a normal pattern that will not surprise anyone. It’s a means of global communication, and people from all over the world are mastering it. However, it is not enough to be competitive in the labor market. An employer will be more interested in a resume that shows knowledge of two or even three languages.

A foreign language is not just a vocabulary. It is a new worldview, familiarity with culture and traditions, an opportunity to study at a prestigious educational institution, watch movies and read books in the original.

In addition, learning languages contributes to intellectual development:

• memory is trained;
• cognitive skills are improved;
• out-of-the-box thinking is developed.

It is important to understand why you are learning a foreign language, because classes require serious time and intellectual investment. Motivation is another important component of learning a foreign language. If you know why you need Portuguese or Chinese, you will try harder to master it.

Top most common languages

Before moving on to the list of the most popular languages, you need to understand how such tops are formed. For example, if we look at the number of people who speak the language as their native language, Chinese will be the first on the list – almost 800 million people. If we count those who speak the language, then English will be the leader – it is spoken by about 744 million people worldwide.

Combining native speakers and those who have mastered a language on their own into one group, we get the following list of the most common languages:

• English;
• Chinese;
• Hindi;
• Spanish;
• Arabic;
• Bengali;
• German;
• French.

As you can see, German and French are far from the top in this ranking of world languages. This is because there is a difference between the popularity of a language and the number of people who speak it fluently.

In fact, the question of language demand is very individual. Historically, English has become the norm of communication in the business world and in international relations. German and French are often studied. These languages became important in international communication in the 16th and 17th centuries. Germany and France are highly developed countries in Europe that are relatively close to Ukraine and are promising for temporary and permanent residence. This is another reason for the interest in these languages. It is worth noting that after English, learning German or French becomes much easier.