What are the 5 most spoken languages ​​in the world?

Statistics site Ethnolog has published a ranking of the 10 most spoken languages ​​in the world in 2024, which includes more than 7,000 languages ​​on the planet. English unsurprisingly comes out on top. French is in fifth place.

The British still dominate. Here are the 5 most spoken languages ​​in the world in 2024, as ranked by the site ethnologue.com.

English (1.520 billion people)

Undoubtedly, English is the most spoken language in the world. A survey by the specialized site ethnologue.com identified more than 1.520 billion people speaking English worldwide by 2024. Although it is the official language of many countries, there are not many native speakers of English. Only 380 million of them have Shakespeare’s language as their mother tongue, compared to the 1.140 billion English speakers around the world who are fluent in English other than their mother tongue.

Mandarin (1.140 billion)

Mandarin is considered the most widely spoken Chinese macrolanguage on earth. But the Institute for the Study of Languages ​​Around the World ranks Mandarin second only to English in terms of people who are fluent in a language that is not necessarily their first language. 1 billion 140 million people speak Mandarin across the planet. 941 million people speak it as their mother tongue, and 199 million speak it fluently as a non-mother tongue.

Hindi (609 million)

Hindi is the most spoken language in India. It is used by nearly 40% of the Indian population, mainly in the north of the country. This language is spoken by 609 million profiles worldwide. Indo-Aryan is the mother tongue of 345 million people worldwide. 264 million people speak Hindi in addition to their mother tongue.

Spanish (486 million)

Spanish, the native language of many countries around the world, is the fourth most spoken language worldwide. But this is due to the fact that the majority of individuals have Spanish as their first language compared to the previous three languages. In fact, according to the Ethnolog survey site, 486 million people in the world speak Spanish as their native language. 74 million people speak Spanish in addition to their mother tongue.

French (333 million)

Surprisingly, Moliere is the fifth most spoken language in the world. French is spoken by 41% in Northern and Western Europe and 38% in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean. Finally, it is in North Africa and the Middle East that the majority of the population is represented by 13% of French-speaking profiles. 333 million people worldwide speak French.