When up-dating the Which language should I learn? page on Omniglot this week I decided to try and find out not only which languages have the most speakers, and also which ones have the most learners.
The top ten languages in terms of overall number of native (L1) and second language (L2) speakers are:
If you count Hindi and Urdu speakers together, as I’ve done with Indonesian and Malay, the number of L1 speakers is 324 million, L2 speakers number 214 million, and the total number of speakers is 438 million. This doesn’t change the rankings of other languages.
The languages with the most learners are English (600 million), French (100 million), and Spanish (21 million). If you add these figures to the above totals, English moves into first place, French into seventh place, and Spanish into fourth place.
The most popular languages to study in the USA are Spanish, French, American Sign Language (ASL), German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Latin and Russian [source].
In Europe the most studied foreign languages are English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Russian [source].
I couldn’t find any figures for the number of Chinese learners, but there were 234,275 takers of the Chinese Proficiency Tests in 2012 [source]. I suspect that the total number of people learning Chinese isn’t huge, but it has increased over the past few years.
Do you have details of which languages have most learners in other countries?
People who enjoy learning languages, travelling, learning about different cultures and/or meeting people from different countries tend to be more open to difference, and more tolerant. At least that is my experience. While other people might be more inclined to fear the different and the foreign.
In UK schools the most widely-taught languages are French, German and Spanish [source]. Other languages, such as Italian, Russian, Mandarin and Japanese are also taught, but they are less common. Many British people go on holiday to France or Spain, so the ability to speak French or Spanish might be useful for a few weeks each year. The rest of the time these languages aren’t all that useful, unless you have lots of French, German or Spanish-speaking friends, or you end up living or spending a lot or time in a country where they’re spoken.
I’m not saying that these languages aren’t worth learning – all languages are worth learning, as far as I’m concerned. However, might it be a good idea if schools started also teaching languages that are actually spoken in their local areas? Languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Arabic, Polish, Cantonese and so on. Pupils could use what they’re learning regularly, and maybe by learning more about the communities that speak these language, any fear and suspicion they have of the other and the foreign would diminish.
A new article on Omniglot discusses the future of language learning. The writer (not me) suggests that improvements in technology will soon make it possible to use machine translation in everyday situations and as a result, learning languages will become unnecessary and something people do for mainly as a hobby.
I don’t really agree with the article. Improved machine translation will be very useful for tourists and other short-term visitors to foreign parts, but for people who live abroad or spend a lot of time in foreign lands, learning the local language and about the local culture will always be useful and worthwhile.
Translation, no matter how good, adds an extra step between the speaker and the listener. For those of us who prefer direct interaction with people, and who like to fully understand what other people are talking about, including their idioms, jokes and slang, there’s no substitute for learning their language.
Even if a babel fish or similar device existed, i.e. something that translates whatever language you hear into your own language, and that translate what you say into your conversation partner’s language, it would still be worth learning about other and languages cultures. Or would it?
Are you a procrastinator? Do you find yourself doing all sorts of things to avoid doing something you have to do?
For example, when you should be revising for an exam you keep finding other things to do which you convince yourself are essential and have to be done right now, such as cleaning, putting your books/CDs/DVDs into alphabetical order, researching the origins of knitting, or whatever.
I certainly do this – at times I can be a prolific procrastinator. I try to study a bit of at least one language every day, for example, but often find excuses not to, and other things to do that seem more important. The kinds of things I do instead of studying include working on Omniglot, playing music, singing, writing tunes and songs, juggling, reading, shopping, gardening, and cleaning and tidying. I do enjoy discovering and exploring languages, but sometimes find the process of studying them a bit tedious.
Maybe if I set myself another task that I don’t really want to do or find difficult, such as setting up databases, then I would end up studying languages as an alternative displacement activity. That is, I could embrace the power of procrastination.
Last night at ukulele club there was a new member from Spain, and I talked a bit with her in Spanish. It’s a long time since I’ve studied any Spanish, and I rarely use it these days, so I thought I’d forgotten most of it, but I found that I can still have a basic conversation, even if I make mistakes. I had similar experiences with German in Berlin last year and the year before at the Polyglot Gathering – I could understand quite a bit and found that when I tried to speak it I could at least make myself understood.
At the moment I have no real need to awaken my Spanish or German, but if I do need them, I’ll try to find ways to bring them back.
How do you brush up, bring back, awaken or revive languages you have forgotten or not used for a long time?
Learning a new language is one of the more typical New Year’s resolutions we see and often, one of the most flippant. Though the desire to learn a new language is genuine actually getting motivated to do something about it is another thing entirely. If you are seriously considering learning a new language in 2016 then you should think about focusing your New Year’s resolutions on this. To help get you started, here are some of the top New Year’s resolutions for language learners in 2016:
1. One of the most difficult things to do when learning a new language is knowing where to start. Signing up to an online learning course or downloading a learning app will help you to structure your learning and give you an idea where is a good place to begin, while also giving you an introduction into the new language.
2. Schedule in some time every day when you can focus on your language learning, even if it is only 15 or 20 minutes this will keep the new language fresh in your mind. If possible try to fit two short learning lessons into your day, or one longer period where you can really focus.
3. Make use of online tools and mobile phone and tablet/iPad apps. Firstly, you can download and use productivity hacks designed to help you to become focused and work more efficiently, this will help you to organise your time and set deadlines to help ensure your learning progresses. Secondly, there are plenty of language teaching apps, vocabulary testing tools and dictionaries etc. that can prove invaluable aids in learning a new language.
4. When you start to learn a new language, speak it as much as you can, practice at home and to yourself or speak with other people you know who also speak the language. This will not only help you to feel less self-conscious and more confident, but it will also help you to remember the vocabulary and refine your pronunciation.
5. Your long term goal is to learn a new language, but starting out this can seem like a massive and overwhelming task. Instead of focusing on the long term goal, break it down into a series of short term, manageable goals and aim to reach these instead.
6. Consider saving some money and taking a trip abroad so that you can communicate native speakers of the language you are learning. This will really help you with your pronunciation and will highlight where there are differences in the language used in practice and in accents and dialects of native speakers.
7. Allow yourself to enjoy your accomplishments and the progress you have made. It is easy to reach a short term goal and immediately move onto accomplishing the next, keeping in mind you still have a bigger, long term goal to achieve, but try not to do this. Instead enjoy reaching your goals, show off your new skills to your loved ones and give yourself a pat on the back, encourage your own learning.
8. Know your limitations and don’t expect too much of yourself. You may see websites that claim to teach you a language within three months, but this does not necessarily apply to everyone and you may not be able to replicate the same results. If you are limited in time, you have a shorter attention span or you have more pressing things to do, keep this in mind when you set yourself goals and deadlines. If you expect too much of yourself you set yourself up for failure which can end up demotivating you.
Follow these resolutions and you should find it much easier to start and enjoy your language learning process.
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Do you have any language-related resolutions for this year?
I plan to continue learning Russian, and would like to learn more Czech, and some Greek.
A lot of language learning approaches I’ve read and heard about focus on learning as much vocabulary as possible, and not worrying too much about grammar, at least at first. For example you might focus on learning the most commonly-used phrases and words, and on using them at every opportunity. Later on you might learn a bit of grammar.
In the Russian lesson I listened to today, the tip of the day is to focus on learning a relatively small amount of vocabulary and learning how to use it in a variety of contexts, rather than learning a lot of vocabulary, and then not being able to use it very well. Once you can use the words you know grammatically, it’s not so difficult to add more vocabulary.
In another lesson in this course the presenter suggests that learning grammar from books and tables isn’t very effective, and that it’s best to learn it from lots of examples and exercises which focus on real colloquial language.
I’m finding the course very useful and like this approach. It introduces various aspects of Russian grammar gradually and gives you plenty of opportunities to practise using them.
A few months ago, I learned Spanish to a B1 conversational level in a month while living in Medellín, Colombia. If you want to see the whole story and see how to learn Spanish fast, like I did, watch the documentary here.
But all Spanish is not the same, and I learned a specific breed – “paisa” Spanish. Paisa refers to people from Antioquia, the region where Medellín is.
So, below I will explain how some things are said differently here. These are trends I’ve noticed, and by no means is the definite “how things are” – which doesn’t really exist.
The Basics
You will almost never hear “de nada” or “adios” – instead, your welcome is “con gusto” or “con mucho gusto“, or literally, with pleasure. This is also how you say nice to meet you. “Adios” is only really used for long periods of time – at least a few weeks. Instead, people use “ciao“, mostly, or “hasta luego“.
The phrase “es que” is used a lot – literally meaning “it’s that…”, it starts most explanations.
It’s common to exchange several greetings before ever saying anything of real meaning. “Como estas” is still extremely common, but the “paisa” way is “bien o no”, or, “bien o que”, which literally means “good or not?”, “good or what?”.
Between friends, another common greeting is “¿que mas?“, which means “what more” – and outside of a greeting, it still means that – but as a greeting, it means “what’s up?”. “¿Que tal?“, which is used elsewhere as well, is also used.
If you bump into someone, need to excuse yourself in a crowd, make an error, or otherwise do something that would render an “sorry, excuse me” or a “oh! sorry”, use “que pena“, which literally means “what shame”. If something makes you embarrased, you’d use “me da pena“.
Affirmatives
If you come to Medellín and want to sound local, drop the “si“, and use one of three main affirmatives:
Claro = of course. This is used a LOT. Cierto = right/yes Eso = literally means “that”, but it’s used as a general affirmative, in a wide variety of situations.
Common filler words
Anyone who has done some research on Paisa Spanish has probably heard of the heavy use of the word “pues“.
“Pues” literally means, “well”, and it’s still used as such, but it’s also used as a filler. You could add it to almost any part of any sentence and it would make sense – it’s almost meaningless. It’s like an “uhhhm”.
“O que” is another common one – it’s added to the end of lots of sentences to form a question. This is almost as common as pues.
Paisas are also fond of throwing a “que” in front of adjectives to express a feeling. So instead of “chevere” (cool), they will say “que chevere” (how cool/ a stronger “cool”). This is part of the culture of everything being great, and the common exaggeration of everything, good or bad. Speaking in a bland “it was kinda cool”, has the potential to leave Paisas bored.
Local slang
Something (generally) uneducated young women will do is transform many words to end in “is“. For example, instead of “hola“, they will say, “holis“, and instead of “raro“, they will say “raris“. It’s very improper and actually quite annoying to hear, but if you hear it, that’s whats going on.
“Amigo” is rarely used between friends. Instead, people use “parce / parcero“, which basically means “dude/mate/bro” (use this and you’re instantly better friends with any guy, trust me). If you’re good friends, you’ll even use “guevon“, which is offensive if you don’t know someone. Worse than guevon, there is “marica“, which basically means fag, which is definitely offensive if you don’t know someone, but is sort of teasing if you’re good friends.
There are few ways to say “awesome” – the most common would be “bacano“. If something is REALLY awesome, you use “brutal“, which is the equivalent of “sick” in American English.
This should get you sounding paisa when you come to the amazing city of Medellín. Click here to see the documentary I made while learning Spanish in a month here.
If you’re a polyglot who learns languages for fun, you might choose languages from a particular family or region, or languages that have contributed to your mother tongue. Or you might choose ones that are completely unrelated to one another in order to challenge yourself. These are possible pathways a polyglot might pursue.
Another possible polyglot pathway that I came up with the other day is especially for dog lovers: learning languages from regions associated with breeds of dog. For example, if you have an Alsatian, you could learn the Alsatian (Ëlsässisch) and speak to your dog in that tongue. Or if you have a Bernese mountain dog you could learn Béarnese, and chihuahua owners could learn one or more of the languages of Chihuahua state in Mexico, where their dogs originate. The most widely-spoken of these is Tarahumara (Rarámuri ra’ícha).
Do the languages you study have a particular theme or connection?
Yesterday I did an interview over Skype with Chapman Woodriff, who runs FreeLanguage.org, which provides a variety of language-learning material and advice. Chapman made the interview into a podcast in which I explain how I got into languages, how I started Omniglot and how people can use Omniglot to learn languages.