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Most Studied Foreign Languages
in the U.S.

Spanish is the most commonly studied foreign language in the U.S., determined by the number of students enrolled in foreign language classes in colleges and universities. In 2006, over 822,000 students were taking Spanish courses, 10.3% more than in 2002. Arabic is the tenth most popular foreign language, but enrollment increased 126.5% in just four years!

Language	Fall 2006 enrollments	% change from 2002
1. Spanish	822,985	10.3%
2. French	206,426	2.2
3. German	94,264	3.5
4. American Sign Language	78,829	29.7
5. Italian	78,368	22.6
6. Japanese	66,605	27.5
7. Chinese	51,582	51.0
8. Latin	32,191	7.9
9. Russian	24,845	3.9
10. Arabic	23,974	126.5

Source: Association of Departments of Foreign Languages at the Modern Language Association, Foreign Language Enrollments in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2006.

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