List_of_most_commonly_learned_foreign_languages_in_the_United_States
The tables below provide a list of second 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.
Below are the top second 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
| 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 | Chinese | 59,860 | 0.67% |
| 7 | Russian | 12,389 | 0.14% |
| Others[2] | 489,356 | 5.49% | |
| Total | 8,907,201 | 100% |
Colleges and universities
Below are the top foreign languages studied in American institutions of higher education (i.e., colleges and universities), based on fall 2016 enrollments.[3]
| Rank | Language | Enrollments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spanish | 584,453 |
| 2 | French | 135,088 |
| 3 | American Sign Language | 107,899 |
| 4 | Japanese | 65,661 |
| 5 | German | 53,543 |
| 6 | Chinese | 46,492 |
| 7 | Italian | 45,182 |
| 8 | Arabic | 22,918 |
| 9 | Latin | 19,472 |
| 10 | Korean | 19,270 |
| 11 | Russian | 17,598 |
| 12 | Greek, Ancient | 11,433 |
| 13 | Hebrew, Biblical | 10,442 |
| 14 | Portuguese | 7,684 |
| 15 | Hebrew, Modern | 4,125 |
| Others | 31,302 | |
| Total | 1,182,562 |
Grades K-12
Higher education
| Year | Languages | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||||||
| 1960 | French | Spanish | German | Russian | Italian | [3] | ||||
| 1968 | French | Spanish | German | Russian | Latin | |||||
| 1980 | Spanish | French | German | Italian | Latin | |||||
| 1990 | Spanish | French | German | Italian | Japanese | |||||
| 1995 | Spanish | French | German | Japanese | Italian | |||||
| 1998 | Spanish | French | German | Italian | Japanese | |||||
| 2002 | Spanish | French | German | Italian | American Sign | |||||
| 2006 | Spanish | French | German | American Sign | Italian | |||||
| 2009 | Spanish | French | German | American Sign | Italian | |||||
| 2013 | Spanish | French | American Sign | German | Italian | |||||
| 2016 | Spanish | French | American Sign | German | Japanese | |||||
| 2021 | Spanish | French | American Sign | Japanese | German | |||||
- "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 languages, Korean, Filipino, Arabic, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Turkish, Swahili and Hindi.
- 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.
4. Lusin, Natalia, Peterson, Terri, Sulewski, Christine, Zafer, Rizwana (2023) https://www.mla.org/content/download/191324/file/Enrollments-in-Languages-Other-Than-English-in-US-Institutions-of-Higher-Education-Fall-2021.pdf. Modern Language Association. Retrieved January 24, 2024.