In the most recent charting of the world’s most spoken languages, English has ranked third. While it seems like everyone everywhere speaks English, only 379 million people actually speak English as their first language.
This may seem like a lot but it is actually only 4.9% of the world’s population. Although the language is spoken in 137 countries, it turns out that it probably is worth learning a second language after all.
Over 17% of the world speak Mandarin as their first language. That equates to 1,311 million speakers, which is over three times the amount that speaks English. What’s more, almost 6% of the world’s population speaks Spanish and Hindi follows English very closely.
So basically, if you love to travel, it might be time to install Duolingo and get learning a second language. As lucky as we are speaking a language that is spoken in 137 countries, by speaking Mandarin or Spanish, we open ourselves up to conversations with millions of new people.
You can signup to Duolingo for free here. It’s fun, addictive and very, very useful.
