The population of the planet Earth is more than 7 billion people. Each of these 7 billion is the bearer of one or another language: it does not matter whether it is global or disappearing, having a written language or not. Today there are about 5-6 thousand languages. Approximately 2/3 of the world's population speak the 40 most common languages.

On a global scale, the number 40 is scanty, but for one person, no matter how polyglot he is, it is hardly possible to fully master so many languages. Of course, you can learn a few phrases for fun, but it is impossible to speak perfectly in 40 languages. Even if we limit ourselves to ten languages, few people (although there are certainly such people) manage to master such a number. After all, you see, most mortals (with the exception of their native language) manage to learn one more - two (well, three) languages ​​during their life. So which languages ​​to choose so that it would not be a shame for the time and nerves spent?

Obviously common. Here, I will make a reservation, for some exotics this criterion does not count: they want to know a rare, exotic language. For some, this is just an impulse of the soul, and for some - economic considerations (just imagine how much demand a translator with rare language). Some want to learn easy language, which, for example, is very close to the native language. Here success is guaranteed.

Some people just like the language and want to master it. In a word, the reasons are purely individual, but still, it does not hurt to know how many people speak the language that you know or are going to learn.

We limit ourselves to only top ten spoken languages. Let me briefly mention the languages ​​that are not on this list: German, Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, and Thai! But the whole generation of our grandparents, and even parents almost without exception learned German!

Before we start our count-down, consider the following: firstly, the numbers are approximate, because it is impossible to count everything with an accuracy of one person. Secondly, when calculating, both native speakers and people who speak the language at a fairly high level were taken into account.

So, 10th position is French (129 million). It is spoken in France, Canada, Belgium, Rwanda, Cameroon, Haiti. It is considered by many to be a pleasant and romantic language. One of the 6 working languages ​​of the UN. It is easy enough to learn if you already know English, many of its words are similar to English (Or rather, there are VERY many French borrowings in English). However, here you are waiting for conjugations of verbs as many as 3 groups, troubles with articles and noun genders and many other surprises.

At number 9 is Malay Indonesian (159 million) In fact, there are many dialects in Malaysia and Indonesia, the most common of which is Indonesian. The writing of the Indonesian language is based on the Latin alphabet. The language is taught in well-known universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg in the departments of oriental languages.

8) Portuguese is spoken by over 191 million people in Brazil, Macau, Angola, Venezuela and Mozambique. It is a language of the Romance branch, closely related to Spanish, "sweet language @? according to Cervantes. The spelling is close to real pronunciation.

7) Bengali (211 million) Bangladesh, part of India. Many words from Sanskrit, the ancient language of India.

6) Arabic is spoken by over 246 million people in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Libya and Egypt. It is one of ancient languages peace. Classical Arabic, the language of the Quran, is used to a limited extent for religious purposes by adherents of Islam around the world (total number of 1.57 billion people). In addition, it is one of the 6 working languages ​​of the UN.

5) More than 277 million people speak Russian all over the world - from Russia, Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan to the USA. The most common of Slavic languages. Again, one of the 6 working languages ​​of the UN. It is one of the five most translated languages ​​in the world. It is rightfully considered one of the most difficult languages ​​to learn: because of its flexibility and emotionality, and because we have ten exceptions for every rule!

4) Spanish is spoken by about 392 million people. (Spain, South and Central America, Cuba and USA). Another working language of the UN. Spanish (in other words: or Castilian) learn well with knowledge of French. Plus, relatively simple spelling.

3) 497 million people speak Hindustani (various dialects of India, the most common of them is Hindi). Uses different kinds letters: from Latin variants to Arabic letters.

2) The turn has come of English language, which, according to various estimates, are spoken from 508 million to 1 billion people worldwide, including England, almost all of Europe, USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Caribbean, Hong Kong, South Africa. Probably the simplest language in the world: there are no genders, cases, word agreement, the words are short, the verbs change only for the third person ... In a word - beauty!

1) No surprise for anyone - Chinese. More precisely, Mandarin Chinese (more than 1 billion people) . This abundance of native speakers has made it another one of the 6 working languages ​​of the UN. Everyone knows that Chinese is difficult to learn, but not everyone knows why. In fact, each word can be pronounced in 4 ways (or tones), which changes the meaning. Not everyone is able to catch and correctly pronounce these tones.

So, it's up to you to decide what to do!

Language is perhaps the most important means of communication between people in any country. Often, languages ​​differ dramatically even in different regions of the same country. There are between 7,000 and 8,000 different languages ​​in the world today. On some, millions of people communicate, on others - only a few dozen. What are the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world?

Chinese

The first place is confidently occupied by Chinese. There are approximately one and a half billion of its carriers in the world. In addition to China itself, it is spoken by Taiwan, Singapore and numerous Chinese communities around the world, from the US to Australia. The number of Chinese is steadily increasing and Russian Federation. Chinese, by the way, beats a couple more records: it is officially recognized as the most difficult of all existing, and besides, the most ancient. Chinese inscriptions were found on the bones of animals preserved from the 14th century BC.

The language is divided into hundreds of dialects, and the differences between them can be so dramatic that often the inhabitants of one village do not understand the inhabitants of the neighboring one. Interestingly, the grammatical differences are small, and the difference lies precisely in pronunciation. Chinese is a tonal language, which means that the same letter can have several different pronunciations.

Of course, it is impossible not to mention writing. There are more than a hundred thousand hieroglyphs in China, but it is believed that for an ordinary modern man it is enough to know ten thousand, and the rest have long gone out of use and are contained only in ancient manuscripts.

Part of the difficulty in learning Chinese is that many characters are very similar and only differ by one stick.

English

Speaking of common languages, it is impossible not to talk about English. About 700 million people communicate freely on it. This language is considered international, and its knowledge is required by many employers. It is necessary both for simple communication and for trade and the development of new technologies. Knowing English, you can feel at home almost anywhere in the world.

American English differs in many ways from its progenitor. Even the Harry Potter novels were forced to be translated from English into American

It is curious that the native speakers of this language are not only the British and Americans, as is commonly believed. Take the African country of Nigeria, for example: there are more English speakers living in it than in England itself. And between the US and the UK for a long time there have been passive disputes about language.

AT English dictionary There is one word that has over forty different meanings. This word is set. Often it creates difficulties for translators, because they have to guess from the context what was meant. In general, polysemantic words in English are not uncommon, so you should be careful when using them.

Spanish

The third most widely spoken language is Spanish, with about 500 million people speaking it. It, unlike Chinese, is easy enough to learn, because the words here are mostly read the same way as they are written, and besides, there are almost no long difficult words. Its related languages ​​are Italian, Romanian, Portuguese and some others.

Some believe that Spanish may soon surpass English in its universality, because Spain has a high birth rate, and besides, this language is also spoken in others. major countries such as Mexico.

The difference between Spanish and Chinese is its homogeneity. Its dialects differ little from each other, so even a Spaniard and a Chilean will have no problem understanding each other.

Spanish can be spoken very fluently due to the fact that it has a lot of vowels, although this can be difficult for an inexperienced person who is just starting to learn.

The peculiarity of Spanish is the presence of inverted question marks in it, moreover, they are placed at the beginning of a sentence, and not just at the end

Arab

Arabic is another widely spoken language in the world, used by over 300 million people. Perhaps the most important thing that everyone knows about it, without exception, is that it is written from right to left, and not from left to right, as is customary in most writing systems. But this rich, saturated language has many other features.

Arabic is usually divided into five dialects, the most widely spoken of which is Egyptian. But there is one standardized version used in printed products.

The Arabic vocabulary has a small number of borrowings. At all times, the Arabs preferred to come up with their own words for concepts, rather than take foreign ones. That is why Arabic is considered extraordinarily rich and unique in its kind. But, on the contrary, many words came from Arabic to other countries, for example, algebra, guitar, syrup, giraffe, massage.

The most famous of the monuments of the classical Arabic language is, of course, the holy book of the Koran.

Russian

The fifth position is confidently occupied by the Russian. It is native to approximately 200 million people and is not inferior to Arabic in its richness.

For foreigners, our language seems extremely difficult. Although some letters are similar to Latin, others are completely original. And also, few of the foreign speakers are able to quickly understand the meaning of hard and soft signs that have no sounds.

They are also often confused in "e" and "ё" for the reason that Russians often do not put a dot on the second. And in general, in the Russian language there is a huge number of meanings of words, various rules, exceptions to these rules, types, cases, endings ... What seems completely natural to us is a dark forest for a foreigner.

There are disputes about the origin of the Russian language. One of the theories is that the origins are to be found in India, in "Sanskrit". It would seem unlikely, but upon closer examination, indeed, you can find many similar words.

Another theory, which has scientific grounds, ‒3 thousand years ago, the so-called Proto-Slavic dialect was formed, from which the group of Slavic languages ​​originated. As a result of rapid development, we now have such impressive literary monuments as, for example, The Lay of Igor's Campaign.

The closest relatives of the Russian language are Belarusian and Ukrainian

Portuguese

About 200 million people speak Portuguese. Despite significant similarities with Spanish, Portuguese is not at all derived from it. It's just that both of them belong to the Romance language branch.

The Spanish do not understand spoken Portuguese, but they can read the text without problems. Since Portugal has been a country of merchants and seafarers since ancient times, its language has quite a lot of borrowings from Arabic, German, etc.

The language is divided into two major branches - Portuguese and Brazilian. The main differences between them are in terms of spelling. If in Portugal the pronunciation and writing have remained practically unchanged for many centuries, then in Brazil they have gradually undergone strong changes. In 2008, a special decree was issued, according to which the language norms have changed so that the two branches are as similar as possible to each other.

Actually, Portuguese also has several internal dialects. For example, the inhabitants of one northeastern municipality speak a very ancient variant of the language, which is extremely close to Spanish.

Portuguese began to form in the III century BC

Deutsch

German is in the seventh position. In Europe, it is considered the most popular. It is official not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein.

There is a legend that one day German almost became the official language of the United States of America. The case allegedly was like this: after the war for independence, a congress was assembled to decide which language to make official for the state. It should be noted that many of the congressmen opposed England and its language. But it turned out that the English won by a mere one vote.

There are many interesting sayings and phraseological units in German. For example, if they want to tell a person not to interfere in other people's business, they say: "This is not your beer!" And if you need to say: "Yes, you are lucky," then the phrase will sound like "You have a pig!"

An interesting feature of the language is the distribution of words into three genders, which often seems completely illogical. For example, the word "girl" in German neuter gender

Linguistics is a very interesting topic, and about each of existing languages there are so many amazing things to say. But if there is a choice, which one to give preference to and study it, then it is worth focusing not only on prevalence, but also on personal inclinations.

As of 2015, there were 7469 languages ​​in the world. But which one is the most common among them?
According to the well-known Ethnologue guide, which is developed and published in print and electronic form by the International non-profit organization SIL International, the list of the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world (by number of speakers) is as follows.

10. Malay
Malay (incl. Indonesian) is a language that includes several related languages ​​spoken on the island of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, in the coastal regions of Borneo, Indonesia and Thailand. It is spoken by 210 million people. Official language Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, one of the four official languages ​​of Singapore, working language in the Philippines and East Timor.

9. Bengal
Official language People's Republic Bangladesh and Indian states - West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. It is spoken in parts of the Indian states of Jharkhand, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The second most spoken language in India. The total number of speakers in the world is 210 million people.

8. French
The official language of France and 28 other countries (Belgium, Burundi, Guinea, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Republic of the Congo, Vanuatu, Senegal, etc.), which is spoken by about 220 million people. The official and administrative language of many communities and international organizations such as the European Union (one of the six official languages), the International Olympic Committee, the United Nations and others.

7. Portuguese
A language spoken by more than 250 million people living in Portugal and the former Portuguese colonies of Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome, Principe, East Timor and Macau. In all these countries, it is the official language. Also common in USA, France, South Africa, in Bermuda, the Netherlands, Barbados and Ireland. One of the official languages ​​of the European Union and other international organizations.

6. Russian
The official language of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. One of the six official languages ​​of the United Nations and the most widely spoken language in Europe. In total, 290 million people speak Russian in the world.

5. Hindi
The official language of India and Fiji, which is spoken by 380 million people mainly in the central and northern regions of India. In the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and in the capital Delhi, Hindi is the official language government controlled and the main language of instruction in schools. Also common in Nepal, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Suriname, the Republic of Mauritius and the Caribbean.

4. Arabic
The official language of all Arab countries, as well as Israel, Chad, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Comoros and the unrecognized state of Somaliland. It is spoken by 490 million people worldwide. Classical Arabic (the language of the Koran) is the liturgical language of 1.6 billion Muslims and one of the official languages ​​of the United Nations.

3. Spanish
Spanish (or Castilian) is a language that originated in the medieval kingdom of Castile in modern-day Spain and spread during the Age of Discovery, primarily in the Americas, as well as in parts of Africa and Asia. The official language of Spain and twenty other countries (Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, Panama, Peru, etc.).
In total, 517 million people speak Spanish in the world. It is also used as the official and working language of many international organizations, including the European Union, the UN, the Union of South American Nations, etc.

2. English
The official language of Great Britain, USA, Ireland, Canada, Malta, Australia, New Zealand, some Asian countries. Widely distributed in parts of the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia. In total, English is the official language of almost 60 sovereign states and many global and regional international organizations. The total number of speakers in the world is 840 million people.

1. Mandarin Chinese
Known as Putonghua (or Mandarin), a Chinese dialectal language spoken in northern and southwestern China. Official language of the People's Republic of China, Taiwan and Singapore. It is also distributed in places of residence of the Chinese diaspora: in Malaysia, Mozambique, Mongolia, the Asian part of Russia, Singapore, the USA, Taiwan and Thailand. According to the Ethnologue guide, the language is spoken by more than one billion people.