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.
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