Things get even more interesting when you look at the third most popular language to study. What our language choices reveal about our history. who are improving their English, but probably also includes students, workers, and tourists who are able to come to the U.S. Today, the 2021 data shows a sort-of rebound: things are getting back to normal, and more learners in more states are studying English again! This includes people living in the U.S. That artificially bumped English down a bit. What we saw in our 2020 analysis probably reflected how the COVID-19 pandemic changed language-learning trends, and with an increase of over 30 million new learners in the weeks after the first March stay-at-home-order, many new learners were focused on studying the languages that they had been learning in their high school and college classrooms, like Spanish and French. So what happened there? Why would English have gotten less popular for a while? I think this is less about reduction of English popularity and more about growth of interest in other languages-namely, French. Duolingo offers 22 different English courses, for speakers of different first languages, so there are learners from dozens of communities and language backgrounds contributing to the popularity of English.įun fact: in 2017, there were 11 states where English ranked as #2, and this number dropped in 2020 to 7 states and Washington, D.C. That's huge! It really speaks to how interested people in the U.S. This year, there are 16 states or territories where English is the second most popular language to study. There are 35 states where French is #2! But there's an even more interesting story in the data. So naturally English is more popular to study there than Spanish! More states than ever before are studying Englishįrench is the second choice, behind Spanish, for learners in most states. Spanish and English are co-official languages in Puerto Rico, but Spanish is spoken at home by 95% of the population and is the main language used on the island. state, but from the territory of Puerto Rico, where English is the most commonly studied language. The one exception to this comes not from a U.S. The dominance of Spanish learners was evident in our data in 20 as well, and Spanish being #1 looks unlikely to change in the near future anywhere in the nation. have this in common: Spanish is the most popular language to study. We may be divided by politics, regional fast-food chains, and what we call sweetened carbonated beverages (soda? pop? soda pop?! Coke?), but all 50 U.S. language maps tell us? The United States of Spanish learners Hawaiian is a good example – you can see how it pops up on the 2020 map, and maybe you already know from a report we conducted last year that its popularity remains strong.īut of course, these maps also show us true changes in peoples' interests, too, which may reflect music, media, pop culture, family, culture, and more. Some of the new languages on the map (literally) reflect new courses offered on Duolingo, so not really the novelty of interest in the language, but more like confirmation that this is what people wanted to be studying all along. One of my favorite parts of these comparisons is seeing how interests and trends change over time. state maps we've put together over the years you can see what each state was studying back in 2017 and more recently in 2020. To start, you might be interested in checking out some other U.S. (A lot of you had similar questions! Stay tuned for answers!) Ok, Psyched to Study, I love a good map, so this week on Dear Duolingo we'll talk about the most popular languages across the U.S., and we'll save the other part of your question, about which language to study, for another week. I live in Ohio, and I’m just curious: what’s the most popular language to study in my state? Or in any state? I’m excited to start studying, but I can’t decide which language to choose from. Now, onto more learning wisdom from our in-house expert, Dr. Welcome back to Dear Duolingo, a biweekly advice column for language learners! If you missed our first installment, read it here.
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