I want a list of the TOP languages sorted by total number of second
language speakers in the world. I don't want to count native speakers,
only people who learned the language as a 2nd or foreign language and
are proficient in it. I've been having trouble finding this data. Try
to find the closest approximation possible. I'm using this to gauge
the language's importance as a world language by how many people are
making an effort to learn it. For example, many people in Hong Kong
might learn Mandarin as a 2nd language, or many Hungarians might learn
English or German or whatever. I want the list to include all
languages up to and including German or Portuguese as the last entry.
For example, English (or whatever) at the top and Portuguese or German
at the bottom.

Dear marraskuu1978,

According to Ethnologue, a language research institution, these are
the languages spoken by most people as second languages, and the
estimated total numbers of people whose second languages they are:

Arabic (all varieties) ............. 246 million
English ............................ 201 million
Mandarin Chinese ................... 178 million
Hindi .............................. 120 million
Russian ............................ 110 million
Spanish ............................. 60 million
French .............................. 50 million
Urdu ................................ 43 million
Bengali ............................. 40 million
Thai ................................ 40 million
Standard German ..................... 28 million
Portuguese .......................... 15 million

Hope this answers your question!
Regards,
Scriptor



Sources:

Ethnologue: Chinese, Mandarin
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=cmn

Ethnologue: English
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng

Ethnologue: German, Standard
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=deu

Ethnologue: Hindi
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=hin

Ethnologue: Russian
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=rus

Ethnologue: Spanish
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=spa

Ethnologue: French
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=fra

Ethnologue: Urdu
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=urd

Ethnologue: Thai
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=tha

Ethnologue: Arabic
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=arb

Ethnologue: Bengali
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ben

Ethnologue: Portuguese
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=por

---

Request for Answer Clarification by marraskuu1978-ga on 03 Oct 2006 10:19 PDT

An OK start, but there are many glaring holes, and the list is far
from complete. For example, where is Indonesian? Swahili? etc.

Answer is fragmentary and misleading. See more information on "request
for clarification" and also the rating I gave the answer.

Why is the answer closed? Maybe another expert can answer it and
provide a better answer?? Can the question be somehow renewed to
invite new answers of better quality?

See my comment in my request for "answer clarification". Answer is
fragmentary and misleading, because there are many important world
languages the researcher omitted and forgot to look up.

Fascinating!