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[edit]

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[edit]

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[edit]

Below are the top foreign languages studied in American institutions of higher education (i.e., colleges and universities), based on fall 2016 enrollments.^[3]

College and university students (2016)
Rank	Language	Enrollments	Percentage
1	Spanish	712,240	50.2%
2	French	175,667	12.4%
3	American Sign Language	107,060	7.6%
4	German	80,594	5.7%
5	Japanese	68,810	4.9%
6	Italian	56,743	4.0%
7	Chinese	53,069	3.7%
8	Arabic	31,554	2.2%
9	Latin	24,866	1.8%
10	Russian	20,353	1.4%
11	Korean	13,936	0.9%
12	Greek, Ancient	13,264	0.9%
13	Portuguese	9,827	0.7%
14	Hebrew, Biblical	9,587	0.7%
15	Hebrew, Modern	5,521	0.4%
	Others	34,830	2.4%
	Total	1,417,921	100%

List of top five most commonly learned languages by year[edit]

Grades K-12[edit]

Year	Languages										Source
Year	1	%	2	%	3	%	4	%	5	%	Source
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[edit]

Year	Languages										Source
Year	1	%	2	%	3	%	4	%	5	%	Source
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
2016	Spanish	50.2	French	12.4	American Sign	7.6	German	5.7	Japanese	4.9

References[edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c "Foreign Language Enrollments in K–12 Public Schools" (PDF). American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). February 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 17, 2014. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
^ "Others" includes (in order of quantity) Native American language, Korean, Filipino, Arabic, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Turkish, Swahili, Hindi.
^ ^a ^b Looney, Dennis; Lusin, Natalia (February 2018). "Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Summer 2016 and Fall 2016 Preliminary Report" (PDF). Modern Language Association. Retrieved July 2, 2018.

External links[edit]

[:0-1] "Foreign Language Enrollments in K–12 Public Schools" (PDF). American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). February 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 17, 2014. Retrieved October 17, 2015.

[2] "Others" includes (in order of quantity) Native American language, Korean, Filipino, Arabic, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Turkish, Swahili, Hindi.

[:1-3] Looney, Dennis; Lusin, Natalia (February 2018). "Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Summer 2016 and Fall 2016 Preliminary Report" (PDF). Modern Language Association. Retrieved July 2, 2018.

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[2]

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