Most Studied Foreign Languages in the U.S.

Updated August 5, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

It can be difficult to determine how often a particular subject is studied nationwide. The Modern Language Association, an important U.S. cultural institution, tracks enrollment in college-level language courses as a way to gauge how often people study different languages.

While Spanish and French continue to be the top two languages studied in the U.S, they decreased by an average of 10.5% between 2013 and 2016. Total enrollment declined by just over 9%. Among the top ten languages, only Japanese showed any growth in enrollment figures. The only other individual language to show substantial growth was Korean.

Language Fall 2016 Enrollments % Change from 2013 Fall 2013
enrollments		 % Change
from 2009		 Fall 2009
enrollments		 % Change
from 2006		 Fall 2006
enrollments
1. Spanish 712,240 -9.8 790,756 -8.2 864,986 5.1 822,985
2. French 175,667 -11.1 197,757 -8.1 216,419 4.8 206,426
3. American Sign Language 107,060 -2.3 109,577 19.0 96,349 2.2 94,264
4. German 80,594 -7.1 86,700 -9.3 91,763 16.4 78,829
5. Italian 56,743 -20.1 71,285 -11.3 80,752 3.0 78,368
6. Japanese 68,810 3.1 66,740 -7.8 73,434 10.3 66,605
7. Chinese 53,069 -13.1 61,055 2.0 60,976 18.2 51,582
8. Arabic 31,554 -5.9 32,286 -7.5 35,083 46.3 23,974
9. Latin 24,866 -8.6 27,192 -16.2 32,606 1.3 32,191
10. Russian 20,353 -7.4 21,962 -17.9 26,883 8.2 24,845
 
Source: The Modern Language Association of America.
 
Most Widely Spoken Languages
in the World		 Writing & Language Ten Tips for Better Spelling
 
Writing & Language
Sources +
 

 

sandbbox logo
©2022 Sandbox Networks Inc. All rights reserved. Sandbox Learning is part of Sandbox & Co., a digital learning company.