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.

Lists

K-12 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.

+K-12 students (2007-2008) 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"Others" includes (in order of quantity) Native American languages, Korean, Filipino, Arabic, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Turkish, Swahili and Hindi. 489,356 5.49% Total 8,907,201 100%

Colleges and universities 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.

+College and university students (2021) 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

List of top five most commonly learned languages by year

Grades K-12 YearLanguages1%2%3%4%5%2004–2005Spanish72.9French15.0German4.2Latin2.6Japanese0.72007–2008Spanish72.1French14.1German4.4Latin2.3Japanese0.8

Higher education YearLanguages123451960FrenchSpanishGermanRussianItalian1968FrenchSpanishGermanRussianLatin1980SpanishFrenchGermanItalianLatin1990SpanishFrenchGermanItalianJapanese1995SpanishFrenchGermanJapaneseItalian1998SpanishFrenchGermanItalianJapanese2002SpanishFrenchGermanItalianAmerican Sign2006SpanishFrenchGermanAmerican SignItalian2009SpanishFrenchGermanAmerican SignItalian2013SpanishFrenchAmerican SignGermanItalian2016SpanishFrenchAmerican SignGermanJapanese2021SpanishFrenchAmerican SignJapaneseGerman

See also

Language education in the United States Less Commonly Taught Languages French language in the United States German language in the United States Italian language in the United States Spanish language in the United States World language

References

External links Enrollments in languages other than English, Modern Language Association Foreigh language enrollment in K-12 public schools