People Speaking the Family of Languages From Ohio

Millions of people around the world are learning a foreign language — but why exercise countries prefer to acquire some languages over others?

Run across if you can judge the following:

1. Yep, English language dominates — but by how much?
2. Which languages are next in line?
3. Why is Swedish the tiptop language in Sweden?
4. Who needs aid with their land's official language?
5. How does Argentine republic differ from the rest of Latin America?
6. Who's learning to talk to their neighbors?
7. Where are German learners?

Confident in your answers? Keep reading to see how the data on Duolingo's learners reveals insights into country preferences, cultural affinities, immigration trends, and more.

Using Duolingo data to find the most popular language

Duolingo has 120 million users effectually the world, and currently teaches xix distinct languages.^[1] The well-nigh popular courses are available for speakers of a diversity of languages: for instance, you tin can learn English from 21 different languages!

To find out which languages are the most popular effectually the world, we looked at the daily activity of Duolingo users over a period of three months. The data covers all 194 countries. Figures 1 shows the most pop language studied on Duolingo in every land, and Figure ii shows the 2nd nearly pop.

Figure 1. The most popular language studied on Duolingo in each country.

Language	English	French	Spanish	High german	Swedish	Italian	Turkish
Number of countries	116	35	32	9	ane	one	1

Figure ii. The second most pop language studied on Duolingo in each land.

Language	French	Spanish	German	English	Portuguese	Italian	Swedish	Norwegian	Dutch
Number of countries	77	57	29	thirteen	10	5	1	1	i

Yep, English dominates — only by how much?

Every bit you may take guessed, English language is past far the most studied language around the world: it'due south one of the top two languages in two thirds of all countries. This is truthful even for English language-speaking nations, such every bit the United States — we'll come back to this finding later on on!^[2]

But just how dominant is English? Effigy 3 provides an analogy:
the darker the color, the college the percentage of Duolingo users
learning English. Overall, it looks pretty dark! English attracts over
half of the users in 94 countries. The darkest regions are in Latin
America, Centre E, and Southeast Asia. English likewise emerges as the most popular when aggregating across all countries: information technology's studied by 53% of all Duolingo users.

Figure iii. The percentage of Duolingo users learning English in each state.

Which languages are next in line?

French and Spanish are in tight competition: French is one of the height two languages in 58% of all countries, and Spanish — in 46% of the countries. But in terms of the overall number of users, Spanish wins: it is studied past 17% of all Duolingo users, compared to merely 11% for French. French also has a bit of an unfair advantage in that information technology'southward available on Duolingo from two more languages than Spanish is.

Are French and Castilian pop in unlike parts of the world? Figures four and five prove the percentage of Duolingo users per country learning French and Castilian, respectively. For French, the darkest regions are in Africa: In Nigeria and Sierra Leone, French is studied past over one-half of Duolingo users. For Spanish, on the other hand, the darkest regions are in Northward America and the English-speaking countries in the Caribbean. In Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, well-nigh 60% of Duolingo users are learning Spanish.

Effigy 4. The pct of Duolingo users learning French in each country.

Figure 5. The percentage of Duolingo users learning Spanish in each state.

Why is Swedish the height language in Sweden?

Duolingo's Swedish course turns out to height the charts in Sweden itself: 27% of all users in Sweden are learning Swedish.

Why would that be the case? Immigration to Sweden has been skyrocketing in recent years: 1 in six Swedish residents in 2015 was built-in outside of Sweden. The fastest growing strange-built-in groups are from Syria and Afghanistan, reflecting a recent increment in the refugee population. Duolingo recently released a Swedish course for Arabic speakers, which will hopefully aid!

Merely it's not just Sweden. There are several other countries where immigrants are using Duolingo to learn the linguistic communication of their new domicile.

In the United States, immigrants constitute 13.ane% of the total population. But fifty-fifty more than — over twenty% of the population — speak a language other than English at dwelling house, and over 25 million people speak English less than "Very Well". Perhaps non surprisingly, then, English language is the 2d almost studied language in the United states of america, attracting 21% of the state's Duolingo users.

Some other case is Norway, where Norwegian is the second most popular language (with xviii% of all users). Similarly to Sweden, Kingdom of norway has been recently accepting many migrants and refugees. According to the data from the showtime of the yr, immigrants constitute 13.4% of the full population in Norway.

Who needs help with their state's official linguistic communication?

Duolingo not just helps immigrants, but also assists locals in learning an official language of their own state.

In India, English language is ane of the two official languages (together with Hindi), but information technology's the elevation language studied on Duolingo; near a third of Duolingo users in Bharat are learning English. Why? It may be surprising, but only about x% of India's population speaks English well. And notwithstanding, English is an unequivocally important language in that region. English language is normally used in college education and administration, and some phone call it the "de facto national language of India". Those who don't speak it have more limited access to jobs and basic services.

In other regions, the situation may be even more than dire. In Republic of angola and Mozambique, Portuguese is the only official linguistic communication (since both countries used to exist Portugal'due south colonies). Yet, the knowledge of the language is limited among the natives: one-half of the population in Mozambique and 40% of the population in Angola don't really speak Portuguese. Luckily, Duolingo can help! And indeed, Portuguese is the second most popular Duolingo linguistic communication in the 2 countries: 21% of users in Mozambique and 12% of users in Angola are learning Portuguese. The interest might be even higher, was it not for the fact that prior knowledge of either English or Spanish is required to study Portuguese on Duolingo.

Canada is another interesting instance: its top language on Duolingo is French — one of Canada'due south two official languages (in add-on to English). But the status of French in Canada is very unlike from the status of English in India; most importantly, your socioeconomic condition doesn't depend on your French proficiency. French is spoken generally in the region of Québec, where over half of the population speaks exclusively French, and the rest is generally bilingual in English and French. The other parts of Canada are much less bilingual, fifty-fifty though French is mandatory as a second language for most Canadian students. Is this requirement the reason why a third of Duolingo users in Canada are learning French? Or is it because most Canadians truly want to larn their other official language?

How does Argentina differ from the residuum of Latin America?

Latin American countries are fairly consistent in their language preferences: The height language is English, followed by Spanish in Portuguese-speaking Brazil and either French or Portuguese in Spanish-speaking countries.

But… there is an exception!

In Argentina, the 2d near popular language is actually Italian. eleven% of Duolingo users in Argentine republic are learning Italian — over twice as many equally those in neighboring countries (although Uruguay came close).

Why would Italian be and so pop in Argentina? Argentina (similarly to Uruguay) has strong ties with the Italian language. In the 19th and 20th centuries, large waves of immigrants flowed from Italian republic to Argentine republic. Today, up to about 63% of the population has some degree of Italian descent. You might have heard that the current Pope Francis is from Argentina — but did you know that he was born to Italian immigrants?

Who's learning to talk to their neighbors?

One reasonable approach for picking a language to learn is to go with a language spoken in your neighboring countries. Is there any show of people really taking this approach?

Yeah! For some countries, information technology happens to exist ane of the three tiptop
languages on Duolingo: English, French, or Spanish. For example:

• Mexico → English (#i language), United states of america → Spanish (#1 language)
• French republic → Spanish (#two language, after English), Spain → French (#2 language, after English)
• English-speaking countries in West Africa → French (#1 linguistic communication), French-speaking countries in West Africa → English (#i language)

The higher up is indicative, merely nosotros cannot distinguish it from learners' preference to study the globe's virtually pop languages. Luckily, there are other examples clearly driven by geographic proximity:

• One-half of Brazil's neighbors → Portuguese (#2 language, afterwards English or Spanish)
• Finland → Swedish (#two linguistic communication, later on Castilian); although in that location are other reasons why Finns might want to study Swedish: both Finnish and Swedish are in fact official languages in Finland, and many jobs require bilingual skills^[3]
• Kingdom of denmark → Dutch (#2 language, after Castilian); not neighbors, merely pretty close

There are probably many other between-neighbor relationships that our data isn't currently capturing. When Duolingo starts offering more than courses — especially for different Asian and African languages — we might be able to see more!

Where are German learners?

German is the fourth about studied linguistic communication on Duolingo. It'south one of the top two languages in xx% of all countries — largely focused in Europe, Centre Eastward, and Asia — and it's studied by 7% of all Duolingo users.

Which countries are the most interested in learning German language? Beneath are a few examples from dissimilar parts of the globe.

German tops the charts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where it is studied by over half of Duolingo users. In fact, German language is very popular in the whole region of the Balkans, which is geographically very close to German-speaking countries: Frg, Republic of austria, and Switzerland. There's a long history of close economical ties between Germany and the region (e.g., that's where many of Deutschland'south guest workers came from later the Earth War Two), which probable continue to this day.

German language is also pop in somewhat unexpected places. It's the meridian linguistic communication in Namibia, where it is studied by nigh a 3rd of Duolingo users. Namibia's relationship with Federal republic of germany is complicated considering of the colonial times, when Namibia was under German rule. German was i of Namibia's official languages up till 1990, and is spoken by a third of Namibia's white community.

German is also the 2d most popular language in Islamic republic of iran and Republic of indonesia. Equally it turns out, Germany and Islamic republic of iran accept invested in scientific and academic relations, and many Iranian scientists have been trained at German institutions. As for Republic of indonesia, Germany is the state's most popular study destination in Europe. There are currently almost 4,000 Indonesian students in Germany — an over thirty% increase in the past iv years. Even quondam president of Indonesia, B.J. Habibie, was educated in Germany.

Find any other interesting patterns in the Duolingo data? Post on Facebook or Twitter!

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1. Catalan, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, French, German, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Shine, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and Welsh. Many more than are under development (see full list). ↩︎

2. If we further exclude English-speaking countries, we are left with simply a handful of countries for which English is not one of the top 2 languages: the Scandinavian and the Balkan countries in Europe, Iran in Middle Due east, Ethiopia in Africa, and Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, and Myanmar in Asia. For each of these countries, Duolingo doesn't actually offer an English form, and then it's possible that English would accept made it to the pinnacle ii, had the grade been offered. ↩︎

3. The original version of this postal service stated the following: "although this might be partly because Swedish is in fact mandatory in Finnish primary school". Thanks to annika_a for the correction and description. ↩︎

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Source: https://blog.duolingo.com/which-countries-study-which-languages-and-what-can-we-learn-from-it/

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