Foreign languages studied in European Union countries

Foreign languages studied in European Union countries - who studies what?

Who studies foreign languages? In the European Union member states 17 million lower secondary school students studied at least one foreign language in 2015. That represents 98.6% of al students at secondary schools in the EU countries.

Of these students, 10 million (58.8%) studied two or more foreign languages.

English was the most popular language of study with nearly 17 million lower secondary students (97.3%). All students in Denmark, Malta, and Sweden studied English. The other popular languages of study were French with 5 million students (33.8%), German with 3 million students (23.1%), and Spanish with 2 million students (13.6%).

French was studied by all students in Luxembourg and was also the top foreign language studied in Ireland (60.4% of students) and Belgium (52.8%). French was the second most popular language studied at lower secondary school in nine EU countries, with the highest being Cyprus (89.2%), Romania (83.6%), Portugal (66.6%), Italy (65.4%), and the Netherlands (55.6%).

German was studied by all students in Luxembourg in 2015 and was the second most popular language studied at lower secondary school in eight EU countries, with the highest being Denmark (73.6%), Poland (69.2%), and Slovakia (53.6%).

Spanish is popular in Sweden (43.7%) and France (39.0%).

Russian, the only commonly studied non-EU language, was the second most popular language (after English) in the three Baltic States: Lithuania (66.2%), Estonia (63.6%), and Latvia (59.7%) – as well as Bulgaria (16.9%).

In 2015, all or nearly all lower secondary students in EU countries studied at least two foreign languages in Luxembourg (100%), followed by Finland (98.4%), Italy (95.8%), Estonia (95.4%), and Romania (95.2%). At the other end of the scale, 8.8% of students studied two languages in Austria, and 6.0% of students in Hungary.

The 2015 research was conducted by eurostat.

www.ec.europa.eu/eurostat

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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