LanguageJot » General http://www.languagejot.com Resources for Learning Foreign Languages Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:35:43 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Top Ten Spoken Languages in the World http://www.languagejot.com/2008/05/13/top-ten-spoken-languages-in-the-world/ http://www.languagejot.com/2008/05/13/top-ten-spoken-languages-in-the-world/#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 00:10:08 +0000 admin http://www.languagejot.com/2008/05/13/top-ten-spoken-languages-in-the-world/ If your main purpose of learning foreign languages is the ability to speak to as many people as possible in their native language, then knowing the top ten languages spoken throughout the world is important.

From Wikipedia:

Rank Language Family Ethnologue (2005 estimate) Encarta estimate
Tenth German Indo-European, Germanic, West 95.4 million 100.1 million
Ninth Japanese Japanese-Ryukyuan 122 million 125 million
Eighth Russian Indo-European, Slavic, East 145 million 167 million
Seventh Portuguese Indo-European, Italic, Romance 177.5 million 176 million
Sixth Hindi Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan 181 million 366 million
Fifth Arabic Afro-Asiatic, Semitic 206 million 422 million
Fourth Bengali Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan 230 million 207 million
Third English Indo-European, Germanic, West 309 million 341 million
Second Spanish Indo-European, Italic, Romance 322 million 322 million
First Mandarin Sino-Tibetan, Chinese 873 million –

I’m sure you see the disputes in the number of speakers for each language between Ethnologue and Encarta. There are a number of factors that come into play when building a list such as this, none of which I will discuss here — they are far too boring.

There are certainly other lists available for different purposes. If you want the most useful languages to learn RIGHT NOW, this is certainly not the list. You may have entirely different reasons for learning another language, or multiples. Whatever your reason, that’s the most important one. Now, get to learning your next language!

Please see the Wikipedia source for more and the most up-to-date information on the matter.

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The languages section will be in flux for some time, but stay-tuned … I’m researching like mad and hope to provide you links to the best language learning material available.

For more information, please check out how to learn any language and the needed tools. Enjoy, and I hope you’re speaking fluently in another language soon!

Questions? Suggestions? Comments? Leave a comment on the most appropriate page and it will be addressed as soon as possible.

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