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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]
| 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% |
Below are the top foreign languages studied in American institutions of higher education (i.e., colleges and universities), based on the Modern Language Association's census of fall 2021 enrollments. "Percentage" refers to each language as a percentage of total U.S. foreign language enrollments. [3] : 49
| Rank | Language | Enrollments | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spanish | 584,453 | 49.4% |
| 2 | French | 135,088 | 11.4% |
| 3 | American Sign Language | 107,899 | 9.1% |
| 4 | Japanese | 65,661 | 5.6% |
| 5 | German | 53,543 | 4.5% |
| 6 | Chinese | 46,492 | 3.9% |
| 7 | Italian | 45,182 | 3.8% |
| 8 | Arabic | 22,918 | 1.9% |
| 9 | Latin | 19,472 | 1.6% |
| 10 | Korean | 19,270 | 1.6% |
| 11 | Russian | 17,598 | 1.5% |
| 12 | Greek, Ancient | 11,433 | 1.0% |
| 13 | Hebrew, Biblical | 10,442 | 0.9% |
| 14 | Portuguese | 7,684 | 0.6% |
| 15 | Hebrew, Modern | 4,125 | 0.3% |
| Less Commonly Taught Languages | 31,302 | 2.6% | |
| Total | 1,182,562 |
| Year | Languages | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | % | 2 | % | 3 | % | 4 | % | 5 | % | ||
| 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] |
| Year | Languages | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||||||
| 1960 | French | Spanish | German | Russian | Italian | [4] | ||||
| 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 | |||||
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